Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story (1993)

Overrated and overhyped

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

TV-drama based on Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek's memoir about her years in incarceration after being convicted of killing her husband's ex-wife. Bembenek, a small-town rabble rouser, sometime-model and ex-cop, clearly gets the filmmakers' sympathy here, and the piece is most assuredly one-sided; however, the mind-boggling legal injustices done to her are incredible, and the leading role is carried off almost without a hitch by a very forceful Tatum O'Neal. After a strenuous opening, which is framed in flashback for no apparent reason, both the direction and O'Neal's performance improve, and the supporting players are excellent throughout. Not a compact telefilm (it runs 4 hours with commercials), but a consistently interesting one. Tatum is sympathetic, hard-headed, feisty and moving; the look on her face at the end seems to make all the legal hell almost irrelevant.

This film sort of reminded me of I Want To Live. A phony movie claiming a female criminal is innocent. Why is it that so many people felt sorry for Lori? She was fairly tried and convicted. Her case is a "miscarriage" of justice only in the sense she brutally killed someone and only served a little over 10 years for it. There were witnesses and a mountain of evidence against her that she was really the one who killed Christine Schultz.

This movie/miniseries is entertaining and Tatum O'Neal and Alex McArthur do a great job in particular with their roles. They really make you sympathize for Bambi and her plight as the only righteous character in a massive plot against her by Milwaukee Police, State of Wisconsin employees, neighbors and friends, and even her own husband. But, let's remember that Lawrencia Bembenek herself wrote the book that this movie is based on. She is less than biased. As a very intelligent woman, Bembenek is able to draw you in and make you believe her story. She had many, many people buying her claims of innocence and conspiracy theory, especially in Wisconsin. As someone who lived through that time in Milwaukee and who's father gave the expert testimony about the wig fibers found on Christine Schulz being a highly probable match to the wig found stuck in the apartment's pipes after it was flushed in an attempt to destroy evidence, this woman is manipulative and I have no doubt she is guilty.But as the master storyteller she is, Bembenek twisted fact and molded public opinion to sway perception of her innocense. As a movie, this telling of her story does the same. It draws you in and is a fascinating story of justice gone wrong. It has a nice pacing for getting all that information and long time period into 3 1/2 hours. Ms. O'Neal plays the incredulity of Bambi very well. Bruce Greenwood does a nice job with what he was given, although the writing leaves him with little room to doubt that Fred Schulz was a evil and devious man - quite an inaccurate characture. I would have enjoyed this movie more if you were left a little more in doubt as to what actually happened, as no one still knows the complete story. Every person in the real drama had motive and no one was without their significant flaws. That's what made the real story so compelling and intriguing, and that would have made the movie better, if you were left to make your own decisions. Overall, worth the investment of time, but not necessarily of money.

Justice was definitely blind to the plight of Lawrencia Bembenek, who served 10 years in prison for the murder of her husband's ex-wife, in which she obviously had no role.In this engrossing film, Lawri (aka 'Bambi') is beautifully played by Tatum O'Neal. Although this TV movie lasts for 3 1/2 hours, it is so totally intriguing that I had to wait for commercials to take a break or grab a snack.You cannot help but feel empathy for this incredibly attractive young woman, who was set-up and/or victimized by everyone including her husband, the incompetent attorney who represented her, the Milwaukee police department, the U.S. justice system and trusted friends. The story exposes how blind our justice system can be, as time-after-time Lawri's attempts to appeal her case are denied despite new evidence that attests to her innocence.Only Canada seems to get it. Highly recommended!