It is easy to tell when the protagonist in a crime movie is in for trouble: when the police appear incompetent. At the start of "Second Chances," the heroine, Professor Kate Fischer, is given the following contradictory and redundant warning by a police detective: "Don't worry. But be aware and keep your eyes open!" Another piece of advice that should have been taken to heart by the professor: don't count on the police, even if you are sleeping with the lead investigator.

The story of the professor backtracks to the moment when Kate Fischer was a superstar journalist, who conducted an interview with a serial killer without informing the police. With the long delay, the killer claimed another victim, a young woman with the beautiful name of Laura Rose. That moment has haunted Kate. But it has haunted even more someone who is now out for blood against the journalist.

The screenplay serves up a host of possible villains, including the faculty, administrative staff, and student body at Haskins College, a fictional institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Kate has now landed a plum teaching job. For her first course, she only has a smattering of students in a large lecture hall. But four of those students become suspects when they registered for the course only after it was announced that Kate would be teaching it. The wily police zero in on those suspicious late registrants.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: One word is in order about the job that the detective did in protecting Kate: Pathetic! While he evidently scored in the bedroom with Kate, he loses points on his tactical approach to a crime scene, entering the home alone and getting clubbed over the head by the perp.

For the police as a whole, this film may have depicted the slowest response on record of a SWAT team, once the perps and the location have been identified. On arrival at the crime scene, the team even took its time to affix large photos of the perps on the side of the police van. Then came the brilliant order of the lead detective: "Stand down!!!"

The abysmal screenplay produced more laughs than suspense. But the most appalling line of dialogue was when the professor stated about her teaching position at Haskins: "It's a new start for Robbie and I." With that level of expertise in her grammar, I would not want a paper of mine to be graded by Professor Fischer.

Boston serial killer Max Hersog has been in prison for the last two years. Journalist Kate Fischer (Melissa George) is still villainized for holding back information which could have solved the case earlier. She was not convinced that Max is the September Slayer and a person with that Modus Operandi is hunting again. She is the new ethics professor in a local college and it's causing a scandal. She is still recovering from her divorce and her public battles. Lucas Kelley is the police detective.

This is a murder mystery TV thriller. There are some problems with the production, the writing, and the final section. The production is strictly TV and it struggles to make Montreal locations be Boston. Somebody should be fired for the bad signage work. The writing is problematic. As a mystery, the reveal needs to have more obvious hints. The villains need bigger roles. It doesn't make sense that he kills like the serial killer. Why? This should not be that complicated. It should be formulaic. As for the final section, it makes no sense that the swat team doesn't go into the house first. There are issues with the sequencing of events. Grading on a curve, this fails even as a cable TV movie.

I'm not too sure what the writers, Angelique Palozzi & Francesca Palozzi, or the director, Jean-Claude Lord, were aiming from when they created this movie. It's listed as a Crime, Mystery, Thriller but for the first half of the film, it fails on all three genre's and, at times, seems nothing more than a pompous and over-acted Soap Opera. Even Melissa George's acting couldn't lift it out of the sickly sweet. It's not until the second half of the movie that the story starts to get interesting - though I had been close to turning it off by then.

It really is a strange thing because EVERYTHING changes in the latter half; not only does the story pique your interest a little more, but the direction becomes tighter and more focused, giving you a better atmosphere and, very nearly, creating tension, and the acting becomes stronger and the character portrayals are more believable and not so "throw-away" as they previously were.

However, this doesn't stop the film from being poor. There are sections in the story that could have been utilised better. For example, when the detective tracks down the shop where a suspect hired a costume he is informed that the person hired two costumes, a police uniform and a clown outfit. Later in the film, Melissa George, is at a party with her son and there are clowns. Neither the director or the writers used this to create tension or build suspense.

Another big failure of the film was the over-used clichés. The main one being the relationship between Melissa George's character, Kate Fischer, and Detective Lucas Kelly, played by Ryan Scott Greene. They used to date each other in high-school (don't they always(?)) and after a heated "What went wrong?" argument, they end up in a passionate kiss, then on the stairs fighting to open the buttons on blouse and shirt, then in the bedroom... Don't get me wrong, if I had the slightest chance to bed Melissa George I'd take it, but come on people let's get original, please!

So for the first half of the movie I was bored, though not enough to turn it off; however the Chromebook did come out. Even though the second half improved considerably, the Chromebook stayed out, though I did look up a few more times. So I'd only recommend this to Melissa George fans, of which I became one after I saw her in Triangle, and only if you can multitask, like surf the web, iron, etc...