Do You Trust Your Doctor?
A year after her husband died in a train incident, Kate (Amy Jo Johnson - Hard Ground) and her son return to Ridgewood, where she grew up, to live with her sister Jess (Carol Alt) and start afresh. Her return comes to the attention of two men; fireman Tom (Paul Popowich - My Daughter Must Live), her former boyfriend who is still sweet on her, and Dr. Mark Lucas (David Haydn-Jones - A Bramble House Christmas) who also takes a shine to Kate offering her a job as his new assistant in his surgery. But what Kate doesn't know is that Dr. Lucas has a sinister secret as he enjoys playing God by killing his elderly patients. That is until a local warns her that he is evil and Kate becomes suspicious which puts her in danger.
"Fatal trust" is the sort of made for TV movie which whilst not terrible is only ordinary, obvious and extremely telegraphed, as such to call it a thriller would be being over generous. It is basically a case that during the opening 20 minutes so much is telegraphed that you can take a good stab as to how it will end and so it becomes a case of watching till it gets there, half hoping that maybe something original will magically manifest itself. The only thing original is that at the end of the movie a message comes on screen about an English physician convicted for killing 15 patients whilst it is estimated that he killed over 200, the man was Harold Shipman and has nothing to do with the story in "Fatal Trust".
The thing is that whilst "Fatal Trust" is a procession which throws up nothing new or unexpected it does keep your attention. Why? Well I am not entirely sure because everything about it is less than subtle from clue dropping to acting but something does and I think it is the actors. David Haydn-Jones is pantomime sinister as Dr. Lucas whilst Amy Jo Johnson is pretty and sweet as Kate. And it is obvious that director Philippe Gagnon thought so as well with many scenes which focus on her attractiveness, including a shower scene. And that is about it because in truth their characters are not great and are just typically flat TV movie characters with poor dialogue to spout.
What this all boils down to is that "Fatal Trust" is a watchable TV movie but it is one which is very ordinary with everything telegraphed and fails to deliver anything you won't have seen before.
