Dick De Jong
January 24, 2012
HDTV Solutions

When you have just watched a movie, it's never a good sign that you go running to IMDB to try to unearth why on earth they ever made the film in the first place.

Not that Love Me is bad. It simply left me cold and curious.

In the Special Features, the actors constantly describe Love Me as a love story/murder mystery/thriller.

I've tried to avoid "thrillers" ever since I was hyper-sensitized for life when I experienced The Exorcist and Don't Look Now one traumatic weekend forty years ago.

Love Me pales in comparison. The following clip is the tensest scene in the movie, and there's no jump-out-of-your-seat payoff.

As for a murder mystery, television is filled with them and almost all are more engaging and mysterious than this search for a missing teen and her abductor.

More importantly, I agreed with the sweet Sylvia Potter (played by Lindsay Shaw) who - as she was tripping over her love-at-first-sight boyfriend-to-be Lucas Green (Jamie Johnston) - proclaimed off-handedly, "why don't they just catch the guy already." And this was within the first ten minutes of the movie.

As for the love story, I'll admit that there was some chemistry between Sylvia and Lucas, but not consistently enough to keep me from being distracted by the various braids that Shaw weaved in her hair. And why do they have to cast Pattison look-alikes for these troubled teen roles?

Be that as it may, as I was digging through Internet sites, I discovered that Lindsay Shaw has a long list of TV credits, including Pretty Little Liars. And if you are already a fan of hers, you should find enough Lindsay moments to keep you satisfied.

There is nothing very special about the Special Features. In "Behind the Scenes," the cast, individually and as a group, describes the movie, without any real insight. The one takeaway is how cold it must have been on the Canadian set, since everyone is bundled up during the interviews.

In "Stories from the Set," you finally see Shaw's spirit and the spark between her and Johnstone in outtakes. I realize that Love Me is a teen angst movie, but I wish more of that off-screen joy was allowed to make it on to the screen.

Finally, of note, Kat Candler was the screenwriter of Love Me. At Sundance this week, she premiered Black Metal, a short that she wrote and directed. In that nine minute, (not PG-13), film, she packs a powerful emotional punch.

If only Love Me was that engrossing.

Studio: Anchor Bay Films

Director: Rick Bota

Cast: Lindsey Shaw, Jamie Johnston, Jean-Luc Bilodeau , Kaitlyn Leeb, Peter Skagen, Kristina Elliot, Dawn Harvey and Sam Duke

Length: 97 minutes

Rated: PG-13

Video:
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Audio:
English:
   Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Subtitles:
English SDH and Spanish