The Tie That Binds (1995)

The Tie That Binds movie storyline. John Netherwood and his wife Leann are fugitives who are both wanted for murder. They have a young daughter named Janie. John and Leann are in the process of robbing a house when the two residents of the house show up. John kills the two residents and heads back to the car with Leann – only to discover the police waiting for them. John and Leann get away after a cop shoots John, and Janie is placed up for adoption.

Janie is soon adopted by southern California carpenter Russell Clifton and his wife Dana – and what they don’t know is that they’re in for the fight of their lives. John and Leann are trying to locate Janie and will stop at nothing to find her, even if it means killing whoever is in their way. When John and Leann discover that Janie was adopted by Russell and Dana, they plot to kill Russell and Dana and take Janie, but one thing they don’t expect is for Russell and Dana to fight back with all they’ve got, because Russell and Dana are willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to the new daughter that they have grown to love.

The Tie That Binds is a 1995 thriller film, and the directing debut of screenwriter Wesley Strick. The film stars Daryl Hannah, Keith Carradine, Vincent Spano, Moira Kelly and Julia Devin. The film follows the struggles of a couple who have just adopted a 6-year-old girl, only to discover that her biological parents, a murderous couple, are trying to reclaim her.

Film Review for THe Tie That Binds

Imagine Keith Carradine as Will Rogers gone berserk with vengeance and Daryl Hannah as a mermaid hypnotized by Charles Manson, and you’ll begin to get a picture of how the normally appealing images of these two attractive actors are turned inside out in “The Tie That Binds.”

In this efficient little horror film, which opened yesterday, Mr. Carradine and Ms. Hannah play John and Leann Netherwood, homicidal white-trash loonies who will stop at nothing to reclaim their 6-year-old daughter, Janie (Julia Devin). The little girl, whom the police took from them at the scene of a robbery, has been placed in the home of Russell Clifton (Vincent Spano), a building contractor, and his wife, Dana (Moira Kelly), a professional food photographer. Even though Janie does disturbing things like slicing the palms of her hands with a bread knife and blaming the tooth fairy, the Cliftons are still determined to adopt the child.

“The Tie That Binds” is the first film directed by Wesley Strick, whose screenwriting credits include “Cape Fear,” a movie with which the new film has a lot in common. As a maniacal sadist who takes snapshots of his victims just before killing them, Mr. Carradine is almost as scary as Robert De Niro in the earlier film. Cackling and waving a whisky bottle as he does a jig of murderous anticipation around a bonfire, he conveys a sociopathic rage that goes all the way to the bone.

In her much quieter way Ms. Hannah is just as creepy. Her empty gaze, vague, whispery voice and baby-doll pout are exploited in a way that suggests a demented disconnectedness instead of the usual sweetness. The fact that her character claims to have “healing hands” and is drawn to madonna-and-child pictures lends her role a note of pathos.

The director deploys all the familiar cinematic tricks to create suspense as the Netherwoods relentlessly track down the Cliftons, killing all who stand in their way. Curtains billow and windows suddenly fly open in the middle of the night. Toys are photographed to appear threatening, and the child has supernatural intimations of what’s to come.

If “The Tie That Binds” is effectively atmospheric, its screenplay has too many loose ends and not enough good lines. A subplot involving the Cliftons’ financial problems is introduced and then left hanging. The movie’s final action sequence finds the Cliftons and Janie preposterously spending the night on the construction site of their future dream house. This setting inspires the film’s clunkiest line as Mr. Carradine prepares to torch the place and hang the owners: “I hate dream houses,” he sneers before lighting a match.