It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

First off, this is a typical Lifetime movie. Both the acting and dialogue is so-so. That having been said, I don't regret seeing this film.This film is based off a book by Jeffrey Deaver and does maintain his use of a twist and a sinister villain. Like I said, the film isn't top notch but for fans of Deaver's, his story elements aren't betrayed. I also thought the subplot about the main character's custody battle and the reasons he didn't want to go back to helping law enforcement were well handed.I guess what I'm saying is the core is good, even if the execution is not.

There is some surface tension in this story of two mass-murdering villains who plot to rob money from a police stash and kill a graphologist (or whatever he is), but the tension derives from hoary cinematic techniques and plot devices.I'll give an example of a hoary cinematic technique and plot device. Thus: In an attempt to track down the villains by means of deduction, physical evidence, and computer skills, three investigators (including Henstridge and Scott) locate his lair in an abandoned warehouse. They creep upstairs to the loft, guns drawn, and examine the refrigerator and cabinets they find there. Henstridge open a cabinet door. There's a BOMB inside -- with a red digital read out. (Close up of numbers ticking down from the three minutes before detonation.) "Get out! Move!", shouts Henstridge. But Scott delays, tugging at some papers lodged between bricks. (Close up of read out showing about two minutes.) Henstridge rushes to Scott, tugs him, the papers come loose and they rush towards the door. (Close up of read out.) One of the guys stumbles on the staircase and the others hurry to help him to his feet. (Close up.) The three hobble awkwardly down three flights of stairs. (Close up.) They finally reach the street and run like hell. (Close up, showing all zeros in red digital read out.) BOOM, and the fourth floor is blown to bits. This is known as "cross cutting" and the first time it was used, as far as I'm aware, was in 1903, in Porter's "The Great Train Robbery." That is to say, at the time of this production, the technique was one hundred and four years old.The rest of the plot has little to add, except that, instead of one murderer who is going to commit mass murderer at midnight, there are two who will commit the murders in different places. At times the plot seemed slapdash and confusing but I missed part of it, having been interrupted by a margin call from my broker. It took longer than I'd expected to convince him that the master was out and I was a maid with laryngitis.You may wonder about the title. What is a "devil's tear drop," or is there any such thing? Well, in the novel and the movie there is. I don't know how common the term is among handwriting experts. You know -- when you dot a lower-case i -- you ordinarily leave a simple dot, like a period? (I disregard those who dot their i's with tiny circles or little hearts.) The devil's tear drop begins with a dot but then continues upward and to the right, diminishing as it goes, as if it were a transplant from a Chinese character.The main theme of using documents to uncover the identity and location of the murderers might have been genuinely interesting, and informative as well. I don't mean deconstructing the writer's personality from the way he writes his letters. I'd guess that most experts can often tell a woman's writing from a man's, but beyond that it's mostly conjecture. The graphologists had pinned down the "Son of Sam" killer as an artist or engineer because of his neatly printed letters, whereas in fact he was a disorganized paranoid schizophrenic. But the main theme is clotted with back stories about family troubles in the lives of Henstridge and Scott, which I found irrelevant and boring.

I understand the need to prevent the loss of human life and the need to try and determine where the killer "The Digger" is going to strike next.I also understand how important the document is.What I DO NOT understand is this: 1. What happened to the cell phone the guy made the call with? 2. Why was there absolutely NO EFFORT to try and determine WHO the dead guy (presumably the BRAINS behind the operation) was? *****SPOILERS***** That should have taken priority over all. If you could identify the guy, you MIGHT be able to identify his friends, acquaintances, etc. Even though it came out in the movie later that the dead guy was a "patsy," there had to be SOME kind of contact information between him and the REAL brains behind the operation.Other than that big plot hole, it was a very "family oriented" crime drama. Something you could watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon with the kiddies and talk about how your family compared to his family, etc.The most fun I had out of the movie was watching how they made Toronto stand in for Washington. Oh, and BTW, the Winter Garden Theatre is not just a few doors down the street from The Royal York Hotel.

"He will kill again at 12 each day for the next 2 days. I am wanting 20 million in cash." When a man known only as "The Digger" opens fire in a train station many are left dead. The only clue the FBI has is a hand written letter with demands on it. Agent Margurete (Henstridge) needs help analyzing it and the best is retired specialist Kincaid (Scott). I was a little weary of this at the outset. The actors I like, but it is a "Lifetime" movie, and that kinda scared me. After about 10 min I was hooked and was really shocked at how good this movie was. Good acting and good story telling made this one tense all the way through. Not only is it one of the best "Lifetime" movies I have seen, it's also one of the better movies coming out this week. Without trying to give anything away, this is also the first "Lifetime" movie I have seen where the man is portrayed as a good guy. Way to go. The only complaint I had is the ending, but being the type of movie this is it is to be expected. Just a little too anti-climatic for my liking. Other then that I really enjoyed this. Overall, very entertaining and tense, a very good choice. I give it a B+.Would I watch it again? - I might, to catch clues I may have missed.*Also try - Lies In Plain Sight & The Zodiac