Susan Granger’s review of “DEAD IN A HEARTBEAT” (TBS Original Movie)
Medicine and murder combine in this adrenaline-driven psychological thriller about an explosives expert and a cardiac surgeon who team up to defuse bombs set by a psychotic man seeking determined to seek revenge. Timothy Busfield plays Zachary Franklin, the mentally disturbed bad guy who has decided that many innocent people must pay the price for his son’s accidental death on the operating table. Judge Reinhold plays Lieut. Tom Royko, a methodical 15-year veteran of the Olympia, Washington, bomb squad, and a devoted divorced father who shares custody of his own young son (Jeffrey Ballard). And Penelope Ann Miller is Dr. Gillian Hayes, a highly skilled, confident cardiologist with a less-than-sympathetic bedside manner. She’s not even aware of her emotional detachment until she discovers that this deranged killer has infiltrated the cardiac unit of Sacred Cross Hospital and has planted microscopic bombs in the pacemakers of some of her patients. Then, as guilt creeps in, she begins to doubt her surgical judgment. “I will not let this lunatic break your spirit,” her kindly physician father (Matthew Walker) says when she’s faced with the choice of giving in to fear or facing terror head-on. And that’s the movie’s message: We must not give in to terror, not matter what form it takes. While the tension-drenched premise of the movie, written by Mark Rosman and Richard Ades, is certainly plausible, under Paul Antier’s direction, the formulaic outcome is utterly predictable. On the Granger Made-for-TV Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Dead in a Heartbeat” is a suspenseful 5. This TBS original movie will premiere on Sunday, March 3, at 8 p.m. (ET).
