FALSE ARREST

Robert Wagner and Donna Mills

FALSE ARREST (2 part telefilm/1991). Director: Bill Norton. 

In Scottsdale, Joyce Lukezic (Donna Mills) is married to her husband Ron (Robert Wagner), who is stepfather to her two children. One night Ron's business partner is murdered, along with his mother-in-law; his wife is severely injured. At first it seems like a simple home invasion, but the authorities, led by Detective Dan Ryan (Steven Bauer), begin to focus in on Joyce, feeling she had the most to gain from the murders and may have hired the killers. Arrested, she faces nasty fellow inmates, and is even raped. Meanwhile Ron hands her pills in her hospital bed, suggesting that suicide might be the best way out for her! If possible, things get even worse for Joyce after she's convicted and sent to prison, with not a soul helping her but moral support from Nadine (Mimi Kuzyk), a sympathetic lesbian who falls for her. 

Mimi Kuzyk and Mills

False Arrest is a riveting true-crime telefilm with a good, if non-revelatory, lead performance from Mills. Robert Wagner gives one of the best performances of his career as the very slimy Ron, who basically runs off and leaves his step kids on their own. There is also very good work from Kuzyk, Bauer, George Hearn as a lawyer,  Dennis Christopher as a coke-addicted co-worker, and Lewis Van Bergen as Joyce's brother, Arnie, among others. Although Joyce was eventually acquitted in a second trial, she was never fully exonerated. This is based on her book about her trials and tribulations. 

Verdict: Absorbing true crime story with some on-target performances. ***.