MARVEL-LESS MARVISTA: Cradles for Cash (Maternal Instinct) (2019)

Director: Michael Feifer
Writer(s): Feifer
Starring: Adrienne Frantz, Christy Carlson Romano, Gabrielle Stone, and Scott Anthony Leet

Alright, now we're back on track here! After witnessing a couple MarVista movies that were actually good, we've been set back in our place with some that have been among the worst atrocities ever unleashed upon the world. And the latest example of that is Cradles for Cash, a movie so bad that you'll actually be rooting for the main characters to never get their stolen baby back.

Teen pop sensation Adrienne Frantz is annoying, but also Kelly, a nurse who has been trying to have a baby with her overacting husband Jonathan. They're the perfect couple because you want to punch both of them in the face every time you see them, either alone, or together. Kelly is pregnant, and just so happens to be “in charge” of the nursery wing. So knowledgeable she is in her field—nursing, mind you—that she manages to override a doctor's suggestion to perform a C-section on a mother experiencing a breeched pregnancy, by turning the baby around in utero. Then, she has the gall to explain to him how he may have had many years of extra schooling, but her lack of schooling allowed her to gain actual experience in the field, and that's why she's so good at what she does. Holy fuck, I hate her and this movie already. (I know I'm putting too much thought into it, but in no hospital would a nurse ever get away with acting like that towards a doctor making a completely logical, routine decision.)

To speed this up, babies are being stolen from local hospitals, courtesy of a Russian woman named Svetlana, who takes her (apparently) teenaged child with her during her frequent hospital runs, where she dresses like a nurse, and is allowed to walk out with any newborn of her choosing. Okay...whatever. Svetlana is part of a ring of baby stealers, who ship newborns overseas, where families pay large amounts of money for American children. Her latest one, however, turned out to be sick, and couldn't be sold, which should probably lead us to assume it was killed, but that's too dark a thought for a movie like this, so all we're informed is that she's in hot water with her boss, and has to deliver another baby to make up for the crap one she just offered them.

Good God let's cut to the chase: Of course, it turns out to be Kelly's, who went into labor shortly after the “breech” ordeal. She teams up with a woman named Gloria whose baby was stolen years ago, and who goes around offering help to mothers of stolen children, because apparently it happens with great frequency. Together, the two must get to the bottom of an intricate network that surprisingly lacks any security whatsoever, while shouting lines like, “These babies are STOLEN!” with such added emphasis on the 'stolen' that she sounds like a petulant child screaming at her mother for not getting her way.

Oh, and Doctor Lee is one of the people behind the operation, because of course Kelly's “maternal instincts” have to be correct about everything, and she can't just not like someone without them actually being a bad guy. Fuuuuuck. I hate this movie.

This is a tough movie to rate, because it's a movie that has to be seen to be believed, but not a movie that you should ever see. On one hand, there are several moments of pure unintentional brilliance, some of which were so good that we had to rewind them to make sure we actually witnessed what we thought we witnessed; I haven't experienced a movie like this in a long time. But on the other, I can't recall hating a main character with such unbridled ferocity before that those two things pretty much cancel each other out, leaving nothing but a frequently maddening movie in its wake; one where most of the characters die, except for the two you want to the most. (And I'm referring to the wife and husband, not the baby; you just hope she goes to a better family.)

STRAY OBSERVATIONS (SPOILER ALERTS) 

• After Svetlana is murdered, pay attention to how her daughter, who presumably is now going to be orphaned because her mother is all she had, is treated by both the paramedics—who say nothing to her as her dead mother's body is wheeled out—and the main characters, who literally just leave.
• Svetlana is so good at what she does, that the newborn babies never make a sound, even as they're being crammed into a duffel bag.
• Comedy gold: A scene where Gloria is driving a car, yet converses with Kelly without even looking at the road. 
• Poor Adrienne Frantz actually seems to give the role all she has. It's got to be the first instance I can recall where that somehow made me hate her character even more. 
• Can we ever have a movie where a mother can be a mother without rubbing in your face that she's a mother every five seconds? 
• If the husband had more screen time, I think I literally would have ripped my own eyes out.
• I know things like this actually happen, but hearing the way the children are described in terms of “inventory” is actually hysterical, at least in the context of incompetence like this. Try not to laugh at lines like, “They haven't loaded the babies yet!” or “The babies are not toys!” or “No, don't ever name the babies!” 
• On a serious note, Gabrielle Stone's performance as Svetlana is probably the most believable one in this whole mess, which is a shame since her character is a terrible, terrible person, and thus you hate her anyway. 
• There's a twist, but who gives a shit? 
• Adrienne Frantz released a horrible pop album in 2007. 

RATING: 1/10

TRAILER

MARVEL-LESS MARVISTA: The Work Wife (2018)

Director: Michael Feifer
Writer(s): Feifer
Starring: Cerina Vincent, Elisabeth Harnois, Kevin Sizemore, and Preeti Desai

MarVista Entertainment’s The Work Wife takes place in the kind of world where doors don’t exist, continuity and characterizations don’t matter, and no one seems to have any awareness of their own surroundings. How else can you explain why characters who are trying to be secretive, obliviously perform said actions right out in the open, in full view of co-workers? Or how characters’ beliefs change on a whim, with nothing remotely resembling just cause or believability? Or how no one locks their doors, even when the immediate threat of danger is present? Or how a character is murdered by being flung down stairs in the middle of a packed party, with no witnesses? (Also, how is it that throwing someone down stairs is even an option for murder in thrillers, considering the odds of the victim actually dying is pretty slim on a standard staircase?)

Sean Miller is the new executive at an advertising firm. His assistant, Jen, is immediately smitten with him, and—judging from the completely blatant staredown he gives her upon meeting her for the first time—those feelings are reciprocated. They only seem to intensify when Sean’s first meeting lands his firm their biggest client account to date. But there’s just one problem with pursuing a relationship with Jen: Whether or not he wants to be, Sean is married.

His wife, Lisa, is a graphic designer (of course!) who’s looking to return to work after taking a break following the move for Sean's job. Well, the whole marriage thing doesn’t seem to deter Jen, who invites Sean’s wife, Lisa, out with the work family one night and tosses lines out like “There’s a joke going around that I’m his work wife,” (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point) while getting a video of her badmouthing a client's alcoholic beverage brand. Uh oh, can’t see how that could be used against Lisa at any point, like when she’s brought on board as a graphic designer (at Jen's urging) and the video is played during a meeting with executives of the Gin Tonic company—the very one she’s badmouthing!

Things progress from there, with Jen stalking Sean, who (surprisingly!) refuses all of her advances, eventually becoming disgusted with her as her obsession quickly reaches a fever pitch. It should come as no shock that this isn't the first boss of hers that she has grown infatuated with...and at least one previous one even ended in murder. Can Lisa and Sean survive Jen’s murderous ways, or will they succumb to her boss fetish like others before?

Being a MarVista film, there are plenty of issues at play here, though the biggest one is logic: even after Jen’s obsessive qualities become more and more apparent, Lisa still threatens to leave Sean based solely on Jen's word-of-mouth evidence, believing the habitual liar who set their house on fire, sabotaged Lisa's job, sent threatening texts to herself with Sean’s phone (which she acquired by walking through their front door at night, and literally taking it off their dresser as they slept three feet away), and murdered her last spouse, over the man she’s been married to for several years, and who, by all indications, has always been faithful to her. Okay, makes sense.

Or the random scene where a spurned character from earlier in the film, who by this point we have completely forgotten about, shows up at a party to drunkenly answer the phone and stand awkwardly in a doorway right out in the open to talk to someone about his plans to have Jen taken in by the police in the morning. Of course, somehow, amidst the dozens of partygoers in an obnoxiously loud party atmosphere, at a sprawling multi-story mansion, she zones in on him and gets so close she can hear his words without him even noticing. 

Not helping matters is the acting, which is pretty bad across the board, with a special nod going to the drunk guy, who acts as if he just came out of a coma following trauma to his brain rather than an individual who's merely inebriated. How these things can not only get greenlit, but also go into production, pass through an editing room, and presumably go through screenings for executives and/or test audiences without anyone feeling remarkable guilt or shame for unleashing these hellish monstrosities on the world is something I will never understand.

Occasionally, it even has the gall to make a play at framing this whole story as some sort of feminist war-cry, insinuating that several women within the firm are in on Sean’s undoing, but never fully exploring that story angle outside of one or two random scenes. That might have actually been its best bet, but it's yet another idea that seems to have been abandoned in favor of a by-the-numbers thriller that's completely devoid of thrills.

About the only things preventing it from being a complete bomb are the presence of Preeti Desai, who is gorgeous but wasted in a limited role as Sean (and Jen's) boss, and the simple fact that Sean never physically cheats on his wife, at least avoiding one cliché prevalent in the typical “obsession” movie. Other than those two things, The Work Wife functions best as a study to see just how abysmally thrill-less a thriller can be.

RATING: 3/10

TRAILER