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Film: Fugitive at 17
Year: 2012
Director: Jim Donovan
Writer: David DeCrane and Douglas Howell
Starring: Marie Avgeropoulous, Christina Cox and Casper Van Dien
Review:
This film gives us brief images of a young woman, Marie Averopoulous, running away from the police. We see that she was pulled from a police van at gunpoint, someone is shot and she is in an alleyway all by herself.
The film then shifts back to show us what leads to this point. Averopoulous is a high school senior that is really into computers. She is hacker. We see her with her best friend, played by Cindel Chartrand. Chartrand asks her to hack the website of DePaw to see if she got in and Averopoulous informs her that she did. Chartrand knows of a party and convinces Averopoulous to come with her. Averopoulous is reluctant though as they are both on probation for something.
We then meet a detective, played by Christina Cox. Her son, who is played by Dylan Van Wylock, has gotten in trouble for skateboarding on private property. He tries to explain it to her, but she doesn’t listen and this frustrates him. We learn that Cox is divorced from his father as well.
Averopoulous lives with her grandmother; she is played by Rosemary Dunsmore. She has just had a kidney transplant and she is on a lot of medication.
The two young women go to the college party. Averopoulous meets a college sophomore, played by Daniel Rindress-Kay and they end up hanging out the whole night. Averopoulous does have to keep an eye on Chartrand, who is drinking way too much. A college professor, played by Casper Van Dien, has noticed her and buys her a drink. He ends up taking her upstairs. Dien puts something in her drink and she has a reaction to it. She dies.
Averopoulous comes looking for her friend and finds her in the room. Dien then attacks her, pushing her head onto the ground. He dumps some of the drug into her mouth. He flees and the police are called.
Cox responds to the call along with her partner, played by Danny Blanco Hall. They are both suspicious of her. Averopoulous tells them what happened, but all she knows is that the man had long fingernails and strong cologne. No one has seen him, but they find a vial of drugs in her purse. Once they find out she is on probation, they suspect her.
The captain of the police is played by Frank Schorpion and he is the ex-husband of Cox. He is feeling pressure from the parents of Chartrand and he wants Averopoulous arrested for the crime. It doesn’t look good, especially when they learn that Dunsmore is not physically able to be her guardian. They also find similar drugs to what is found in both young women’s systems. They were both on probation for a drug case and Averopoulous used her hacking skills to get the drugs for free. It appears that Averopoulous admitted to it so that Chartrand didn’t take the fall. She claims to not do drugs.
Averopoulous is arrested and when she is being transported, some armed men attack the vehicle to break out a prisoner. Averopoulous is told to run to make it harder to find the others. She does and sets out on a mission to clear her name. She gets help from Rindress-Kay, but will she be able to figure out who the killer is before it is too late? She doesn’t have a lot to go off of, how will she figure it out?
I have to say this film does have an interesting concept. I actually am adding it to the horror film research because of it. You have a young woman with a bright future due to her skill-set, played by Averopoulous. She takes the fall because she is a great friend. She is forced to be on the run for a crime she didn’t commit, because the police need to pin the crime on someone and going off of her record she is to take the fall. This is a time to break the law in order to prove that it is working against you. Averopoulous is gorgeous and made watching this film much easier as well.
Now I have to say this film does have issues. The acting is subpar. The concept is good, but the story itself is a little farfetched. My issue is that Averopoulous is a hacker, yet she doesn’t use those skills to save herself. The skill set she does use are more that she has had to grow up earlier, with both her parents having passed away and takes care of her grandmother. The will and the need to survive are what she uses. I just thought that since the film plays up her being a hacker earlier on, they would have used it more than what the film did.
With that said, I would only recommend this film if you enjoy television movies that are a cautionary tale with a good message. The film doesn’t do anything all that well to impress you. The acting is subpar, the story isn’t all that good, but the concept is. This is not the worst film out there, but it isn’t all that good either.
My Rating: 5 out of 10