Mistress Hunter

2018
Written by Bryan Dick
Directed by Penelope Buitenhuis

If you ever wondered what we would get if Pulp Fiction‘s Winston Wolfe was lending his skills to the Lifetime Movies-verse, then Mistress Hunter is for you! It might also be seen as Taken by way of Lifetime movies, as the Mistress Hunter has a special set of skills, namely getting revenge on cheating husbands, in that she helps gather evidence for a divorce and breaks up the cheating couple in the process. She also has a secret office, uses a fake name, and communicates with the wronged wife via randomly encountering her on the street while dressed in different costumes. That’s just the premise for the normal story before all the inevitable betrayals, twists, and murders happen! This is the kind of bonkers Lifetime stuff I love, it’s the standard betrayed by a man story on steroids with a great hook that it doesn’t lean so heavily on that the story is compromised.

Jackie (Lauralee Bell) is your typical housewife in the fancy burbs with a young daughter and a bankster husband, Karl (Martin Copping), who has an eye that has wandered all over a side chick named Beth (Chloe Brooks). Jackie gets suspicious due to Karl being very bad at covering his tracks (the ol’ “Busy at work” but not actually at work thing!) and becomes a wreck. Her friend Valerie (Lauren Plaxco) recommends to her a woman she heard of called the Mistress Hunter, who handles these situations. And then the film gets sensational!


Lydia Look is amazing as Hannah, the Mistress Hunter (not her real name, and not the job title she prefers) She’s paranoid, walks a tightrope on the line from illegal and legal (and crosses over it a few times!), and is very good at her job. Jackie meets her in a hidden office in the back of a warehouse, Hannah barking questions to her from behind cameras (as she’s had trouble with people trying to track her down!) Hannah meets Jackie face to face, and easily deduces that that Jackie is legit and desperate. Hannah quickly tracks down the mistress, installs cameras into her house, and stirs up trouble between the couple. She also needs Jackie’s help to get access to Karl’s work accounts, secret credit cards and fake IDs, and provides a blunt emotional support. Hannah has been through this all before with her first husband, and her hunter skills are all self-taught. She often drops in on Jackie while wearing a disguise, such as an environmentalist signature gatherer or a security guard. The disguise aspect is one of her favorite parts of the job, and keeps the film interesting with her randomly popping up. Karl and Beth are soon yelling at each other, and Jackie even hires Beth for a nail job at her house just so Beth can see that Karl is her husband and they have a child, something he was keeping from Beth. Everything seems to be going swimmingly on the revenge front until Karl and Beth wind up dead! Whoops!

It looks like a murder-suicide, but the police quickly realize that there was someone else in the apartment, and Jackie previously lied to them to cover up that she hired a Mistress Hunter. And who would believe such a ridiculous story? The police sure don’t, so Jackie is suspect numero uno. She now has to clear her name, which becomes increasingly hard as she gets framed for more murders and evidence that Hannah gives her to help clear her name disappears. Hannah is a ghost, the police can’t find any trace of the Mistress Hunter actually existing, and Hannah is now sneaking into Jackie’s house to give her clues via gunpoint.

This is fantastic stuff! The Mistress Hunter thing is a great concept that helps give Mistress Hunter a unique flavor, and it is played so wholly ingrained into the plot that it just seems natural that someone like that is around and is that cool. If anything, this deserves a whole series of movies where Mistress Hunters get into shenanigans and feature into the already well-established Lifetime-style plots of cheaters, stalkers, internet killers, and wronged women seeking deadly revenge. Director Penelope Buitenhuis pulls off some good scenes both with reveals and suspense sections, while Bryan Dick’s script keeps the characters in their roles while delivering a fair dose of twists and turns. Jackie is obviously conflicted but also very angry, Karl waffles in his unfaithfulness but only because he almost gets caught, and Hannah keeps her cool and her paranoia that serves her well as things begin to go haywire.

Mistress Hunter is one of the best Lifetime flicks I have seen in a while, and will be a go-to example in the future when I try to sell others on the great kinds of movies you can find each week. Highly recommended!

Rated 9/10

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