That was an excellent one.

Lack of good storyline.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

***SPOILERS*** Sad but true story of two nice Jewish boys who got in over their heads in both finance and marriage and ended up dead because of it. It was Bob Kissel who got the short end of the stick in marrying fashion model Nancy Keeshin who as it turned out was as nutty as a fruitcake and deadly as a black mamba.Having and affair with the handsome cable guy Tony Pellicoro Nancy planned to get rid of Bob while the two were living in Hong Kong with Bob a top man there at Meryill Lynch. Spiking Bob's strawberry milkshake Nancy had him pass out and then bludgeon him to death before he had a chance to wake up. No criminal mastermind Nancy, using at her trail a combination insanity and memory loss defense, was soon arrested and convicted in Bob's murder and given a life sentence without parole. That life sentence was upheld in a re-trial making her planned life with Tony, and her dead husbands money, a pipe dream on her part.As for Andrew he went into real estate fraud as well as getting himself addicted on cocaine that ended with him blowing all his money, some 30 million dollars worth, as well as his marriage to former TV finance commentator Hayley Wolff. As we saw at the beginning of the movie Andrew as found stabbed to death with his good friend and personal driver Juan Castillo as the prime suspect in his murder. In was Juan's brother not Juan who was arrested and stood trial for for it.As we began to see what Andrew did to end up getting himself dead it could have well have been anyone in the entire city of New York and its surroundings who did Andrew in since he screwed, out of their money and life savings, just about everyone he came in contact with, even his late brother Bob. Gloriously drunk and about to be evicted from his rented $14,000.00 a month Greenwich Connecticut mansion, With his wife Hayley and the kids leaving him, Andrew somehow got himself killed or murdered before the final curtain came down on him.Sad but typical story of greed and murder in the swinging 1990's and and early 21th century when money was the only thing worth living, and in the case of the Kissel Boys and especially Bob Kissel's crazy wife Nancy, killing for. It was Andrew and Nancy who are the real true life villains in the movie and what did the two get in all the stealing conniving and, in the case of Nancy, murdering that they did in trying to get rich quick without working for it. And early grave and lifetime stay behind bars, at the Hong Kong Women's Prison, for all their troubles.

I'd remembered the "milkshake murder" of this case from the news so I figured I'd give this Lifetime movie a shot. It wasn't bad but it certainly wasn't great.I guess they were trying to attract a certain audience, but one element that ran distractingly for me throughout was the tender age of both the male leads. Weren't both the Kissels middle-aged when they were murdered? The talking-head format used throughout as if to conjure a documentary-type mood didn't add a great deal and eventually became a distraction. Also, these heads were not wearing makeup and sometimes it was hard to connect the head with the character in the story.The film left many important questions unanswered. Why did the Hong Kong-based Kissel put all that money into spying on his wife only to trust her in the end and drink the milkshake? And what led his wife to believe she could get away with his pummeling? She's given a lot of screen time but was left almost totally opaque as a character.The ending of the movie, involving the Greenwich-based Kissell, seemed an unclear afterthought. We needed more information to understand how a man with lots of enemies could end up dead -- with his trustworthy chauffeur being charged in his murder! If you don't mind a fact-based movie that raises questions but leaves many unanswered -- with a large dose of soap-operatic melodrama as stuffing -- this movie works OK as a distraction.

I hope there will be another Kissel movie out there. I read two books about the Kissel Brothers. I felt that Robin Tunney gave the best performance as unhinged Nancy Kissel. You hated her one minute and felt sorry for her in the next minute. She felt like property than a wife. It is true that her father-in-law looked down upon his daughter-in-law from day one. The two hour film which is really only 90 minutes plus a few couldn't unfold the events that led to the downfalls of both Kissel brothers. Robert Kissel was the good brother who succeeded in the financial world and even landed a job in Hong Kong but was troubled by an unstable wife. Andrew Kissel played by John Stamos is the only other standout performance in the film. He is both troubled and devious in deceiving his investors of the actual losses. Their spouses aren't as memorable as Nancy and Andrew. Maybe they should have gotten together in the first place but it would be a deadly combination. Sadly, since it is based on the true Kissel story. I felt that there wasn't enough details but only hints of Nancy and Andrew's falls.The film comes across as disjointed with people like Hayley, Andrew's wife, and his driver giving a statements along with other Hong Kong wives who were expatriates whose husbands and never came home to the Parkview complex. Nancy's crimes were brought on by a combination of things and a culmination of despair and utter desperation. Nancy was tired of being Robert's wife. Robert tried to buy her happiness but nothing worked. She was miserable in Hong Kong and the only light was a cable guy in New England. The Kissels' sister spoke about maybe if she didn't meet the cable guy or that there were too many maybes. The tragedy of the Kissel family is well-documented in books. I felt sorry for both Nancy and Andrew who longed for happiness, love, and acceptance. Nancy felt out of place with her in-laws easily.

Firstly, I know about the subject matter. It is based on a true story and many of the main characters are real people (this is a docudrama) and some have different names. The characters resemble the actual people but look nothing like the real people involved and some of the facts are altered or left out. I'm not sure if this is because of potential liability or threatened legal action or the producers only used the actual events as a jumping-off point and didn't think they were doing a documentary, so accuracy was not tantamount. Also, the time line was cleaned up and made easier to understand because there were other issues that were not included (Nancy's father planned on taking care of Robert's kids and then her brother wanted to care for them, etc.) so if you're watching this thinking this is all the way it was or were not familiar with the actual events, please understand there is a lot more information that was not included or was altered, so the movie is not accurate. The producers and the writer work around this by calling the movie a docudrama, which means as long as it has some truth to it, then that's okay but some details were basically mis-represented in any event.