Rating: C-
Dir: Fred Olen Ray
Star: Jamie Luner, Steven Brand, Audrey Whitby, Gerald Webb.
a.k.a. Accidental Switch.
It’s interesting how many B-movie directors end up working in the TV movie genre. David DeCoteau (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) has been popping out films with titles like The Wrong Life Coach. Anthony C. Ferrante (Sharknado and its sequels) does Christmas movies. And here we have the director of Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers turning his hand to a rather different kind of female empowerment. This is not to be confused with the earlier TV movie of the same title, starring Lesley Ann Warren and Bruce Davison. That was a rather more high-prestige product, back when big networks like ABC commissioned them. Now, TV movies are typically the domain of Lifetime and Hallmark. Even SyFy seem to have given up.
It does require a copious helping of disbelief suspension. Things begin at Buffalo Airport, where Jennifer Clarke (Luner) has just arrived to attend the graduation of her daughter, Katey (Whitby). She picks up the wrong suitcase at luggage claim: its real owner is a rather shady individual, Conner (Brand). This means that, instead of both parties returning the incorrect luggage to the airport, Conner instead naturally kidnaps Katey, murders Jennifer’s ex-husband and frames her for the murder, because… Yeah, I’m not quite clear on the logic here. The problem is, Jennifer has done the logical thing, and so is no longer in possession of Conner’s bag. This complicates matters, and leads to a scavenger hunt round all of Buffalo’s top attractions.
If you predict that eventually means a climax taking place in the moist surroundings near Niagara Falls, give yourself two points. To get there though, Jennifer first has to go through a museum, Buffalo’s suspiciously clean Metro, and a baseball stadium with remarkably lax security. [I was amused by the film having to cover up the team logos on the dugout, top] This middle-aged mom also proves herself capable of beating up train creeps and outrunning the finest local cops. They must have had too many Buffalo wings, hohoho. But Luner is sympathetic, and somewhat hawt, in a “Traci Lords gone MILF” kinda way. She, at least, proves capable of at least trying to behave somewhat sensibly, when all about her are not.
Fortunately for the kidnapped Katey, that includes Conner. Because when you eventually discover why he is so desperate to recover his lost luggage, you’ll probably go, “That was it?” Was amused by the unexpected appearance of scream queen Debbie Rochon, in a minor and neither particularly screamy nor queeny role. After she showed up, I kept hoping Ray might sneak in some others of her ilk, to subvert the whole “mommy in peril” agenda. But my hopes for a Michelle Bauer cameo proved unfulfilled, and the whole thing proved disappointingly safe. While Ray the director proves solid enough, he needs to have strong words with Ray the writer, who appears more focused on an endorsement from the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce than a coherent plot.