Airport Novel Theatre: "Hide" on TNT

I caught a glimpse of her face, framed with raven locks, her lovely hazel eyes widened in...maybe surprise or terror or...feelings.

And I knew I had to run to her ample bosom. O Carla Gugino! I swear I am not gay for you but probably I sort of am!

That would be the beginning of the poem and then it would go on from there.

So it turns out TNT is making some NBC Mystery Movies based on books. Last night's tremendous achievement of cinema was called Hide, and was based on a book by Lisa Gardner, who, I imagine, has written about as many books as your Tess Gerritsens or your Sandra Browns. If I may be such a literary snob--and I give myself permission, a-thank you--they are the kind of books you either grow away from, when you realize romance and/or suspense can be found in better written tomes that aren't produced in some sort of Mad Libsian (Libyan?) formatting; or they are the kind of books a person reads for the rest of her/his life, because the formulaic plotting, "shocking" endings, and stagnant characters are soothing (I guess, if you also find the occasional densely lavish description of sexual assault or torture soothing). Or, I suppose, if I want to break up the either/or: these are the kinds of books you buy in an airport bookstore because you forgot the copy of The Corrections you bought and have already read your three crappy magazines.

I will state here that I refuse to learn the characters' names because I like calling them by their actor names and/or plot devices. Here is the story:

Carla Gugino is a [tough] and [no-nonsense] detective who likes to [have sex] and [drink] and [takes the job too seriously]. But she [also cares!], damn it!, as evidenced by her relationship with Gay Police Guy, whose mother is dying, and she's always like, "Go see your mother" and "Do you need time off? But I'm not going to ask you again 'cause I'm TUFF!" So she's three-dimensional, as you can see. The guy she most likes to [have sex] with is Kevin Alejandro, who died on Southland only to live again on, um, True Blood or Showtime Presents Some Kind of Drama About Sexy Disease. Kevin recently became a detective, but does not have a desk, which is not as funny as when that happened to Veronica Corningstone in Anchorman.

The not-desk-having is pointed out to him once or twice by Zack Attack Morris from Bayside High. Zack Attack is an instructor at Police Academy. He is [soulful] and [caring], as evidenced by the fact that he wants to home-cook pasta sauce for Carla Gugino before he buries his face in her ample mounds, if you get my drift (boobs). Kevin Alejandro is also [soulful] and [caring] because he has blue eyes and wants to [talk about relationships] when he's not waving Carla Gugino's panties around in her office (literally).

Love triangle! Sort of! When they're not solving the elaborately expositioned crime that is so f'ing ridiculous that at one point I considered drawing a conspiracy chart a la The Wire to try and track all the goofery.

But I gave up because Carla Gugino took off her shirt. She was wearing a black bra.

So here's my word-chart attempt:

1. Some CW extras are at the olllllllld abandoned mental hospital, and Vampire Diaries Call-Back Who Didn't Get a Role falls through a creaky trapdoor and discovers:

           a) Old baby dolls with cracks in their faces (every serial killer is handed several of these when he turns 16)
           b) Bottles hanging from strings (serial killers like wind chimes?)
           c)Skeletons in giant Ziploc freezer bags full of viscous fluid

2. Carla Gugino and Her Sensitive Menfolk investigate and make the observation that this crime is just like that one crime that one time where a kidnap victim was rescued and her attacker was put to death a few years ago.
3. Also there is a locket on one of the skele-bags that has a full name engraved on it.
4. It turns out the full name belongs to a girl who is alive!
5. Who eerily resembles the girl who was kidnapped and rescued in the crime I just mentioned in 2.
6. Turns out that alive girl gave the locket to her best friend, who was the girl who was in one of the skele-bags.
7. The alive girl has also had a bazillion names because her dad made her move a bunch when she was younger and also her mom committed suicide.
8. The alive girl is VERY JUMPY LIKE SOMEONE IS STALKING HER. Her best friend is the delivery man. She makes quilts.
9. Some Friendly Exposition Guy Who Formerly Worked or Volunteered At The Mental Hospital shows up and is Friendly and Helpful, so clearly he will end up being involved in the murders in some way.
10. Carla Gugino asks that her taskforce of Sensitive Menfolk run background checks and junk on the mental hospital patients and staff...including Friendly Exposition Guy.
11. The Victim of The One Kidnap Crime asks to meet with Alive Girl, and then is super mean and snippy to her, because the implication is that she was a stand-in for Alive Girl, which Alive Girl won't admit to, no way.
12. Some parents of a former mental patient are brought in and talk about how their son's au pair (not nanny, which becomes a running joke that is not remotely funny, not that it's delivered in a way that would suggest it's meant to be funny anyway) had The Sex with their son when he was 12, which made him Not Quite Right, because after that he killed squirrels and then raped his younger sister(?). And it turns out in order to get their son to voluntarily commit himself to the hospital, they promised to give him a skillion dollars when he turned 28, which is a random age for access to a trust, but what do I know?
13. Random characters begin revealing that Alive Girl's dad was super paranoid, always suspecting someone of stalking his daughter, which is why he moved her around a lot.
14. And then some more exposition reveals that Alive Girl's dad had a brother who was a super creep who was stalking the dad's wife, which is why she committed suicide maybe, and then the brother was a pedophile I guess, and he was REALLY obsessed with Alive Girl, and then Alive Girl's babysitter was shot in the park, and...things. He also mutilated neighborhood pets. That's always a good detail because we all know from Silence of the Lambs that serial killers start there.
15. I forgot to mention that Friendly Guy told a story about a nurse at the mental hospital being murdered on the grounds, and the killer was never found!, in a ghost-story setup that seemed like something Quentin Tarantino would spin off into a grindhouse trailer starring Darryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer. That part never has resolution. Unless I missed it, which is possible, because by Hour 2, I was dicking around on Facebook.
16. So then the killer calls Carla Gugino and asks for the Alive Girl's necklace back and asks her to meet him at the Old Haunted Carnival Mental Institution Scooby Dooby Doo.
17. And she does, and then a dog attacks her, and Zack Attack shoots the dog, which is, unsurprisingly, the most upsetting part of the movie.*
18. And then Carla Gugino realizes, gasp!, it was all a plot to get them away from Alive Girl!
19a. And it turns out, gasp!, Friendly Exposition Guy is the super-rich guy who was sexed by his nanny--I mean, his au pair, ha ha boo--and he shows up at Alive Girl's house with a switchblade, and tells Alive Girl that he didn't kill those girls in the skele-bags but he admired the work, and that he mostly killed hookers, in a prequel book I'm glad I'll never ever read, and Alive Girl looks SO much like his au pair that he just has to have her.
19b. Also Friendly Exposition Guy is played by the dude who played Brennan on Burn Notice, who was one of those villains who was super super super evil and all-knowing but had a secret daughter somewhere that sort of made him a little vulnerable and then Tim Matheson killed him in a triple cross. I didn't really care for Brennan. The last Burn Notice villain I really liked was smooth, classy, gay Gilroy. They've all been annoying Sylars since then (look, Heroes remains useful if only for that particular term) (that only I use probably).
20. So Friendly Exposition Guy Who Was Secretly The Super-Rich Sister Rapist Who I Guess Killed Hookers is about to rape and mutilate Alive Girl when, ta da!, her friend The Delivery Man shows up and kills him!
21. And it turns out that The Delivery Man was secretly her Uncle! Who was obsessed with her and stalking her all the while! And I guess he's making an exception to his pedophile rule because HE wants to rape and rape and rape her forever all the days of their lives!
22. And then someone shoots Delivery Man. Um, maybe Carla Gugino. Or possibly Kevin Alejandro. I don't remember.
23. Oh, and Kevin Alejandro developed feelings for Alive Girl, and vice versa, so they were going to go on a date, which was okay, because he and Carla Gugino are still buddies (with sexual tension), and Zack Attack brought her a home-cooked meal, so she's probably going to bonk him.

THE END

So in conclusion, this movie was stupid and was like a mash-up of nine SVU endings and the dialogue was wooden, especially the attempt to give Carla Gugino a catchphrase of sorts ("Nothing is random," except, apparently, the six ducks and dives the storyline took to get to a resolution). The sexytimes were blurry and showery, which was probably for the best since, if they were in clear crisp focus like the forced scenes to establish Carla and Kevin's bed-buddy relationship, it would have likely been terrible and uncomfortable anyway.

I loved it! Four out of four Hudson News receipts! I would definitely recommend this if you're flying from Chicago to Cleveland and need a way to nod off just after the flight attendant brings around the 100-calorie pack of Lorna Doones.

Also, I like it when murdering hookers is given an enormous handwave. That's classy storytelling.

*This also, unfortunately, gave rise to my favorite moment in the whole stupid movie: after Zack Attack shoots the dog, which has been mauling Carla Gugino, he runs over and gives her this little hug. I feel like it was sort of ad-libbed, only Mark Paul Gosselaar wasn't quite confident enough in the decision, and it came off sort of perfunctory and awkward. It was the BEST.