TV Movie Review: Tamala Jones Outshines Low Rent 'Deadly Dispatch'

Deadly Dispatch is a title so remarkably dull that I struggle to remember it. It's a title so banal that it is actually befitting of this movie, which, aside from star Tamala Jones, is an utterly banal exercise in TV movie dramatics. The story is witless and the delivery barely rises above the level of a reenactment from an episode of Forensic Files.

Tiffany and Shawn (Tamala Jones and Bone Crusher) have been best friends since childhood. Their lives are inextricably entwined even as they have never worked out as a couple and have over the years married and their closeness affected each of their marriages. Their closeness extends to business interests wherein Tiffany has helped Shawn manage his business while still successfully running her own hair salon business.

Recently, Shawn has hit hard times and Tiffany has loaned him money to keep his struggling car service alive in the wake of the rise of Uber and Lyft. Money trouble has caused a deep strain in Shawn's marriage to Amber (Dominique Perry). When she finds overdue bills during a party at their home, she refuses to wait until the party's over to start a fight.

The fight gets worse when Tiffany begins a fight of her own during the party with her husband, Lawrence (Jay Jones). Tiffany is drunk and belligerent, and Amber uses the moment to drive a wedge between the two friends. The two stop talking for a bit and Amber suddenly becomes a caring wife. Why, she even refers business to Shawn's car service in a show of support.

Unfortunately for Shawn, that referral turns out to be a trip to a dead end street where an unknown assailant jumps into his car, puts a gun to Shawn's head and shoots twice. Shawn's murder devastates Tiffany to the point of obsession; she leaves her family, temporarily, and her business, to single-mindedly pursue the killer of her best friend, a quest that may lead back to Shawn's wife.

Deadly Dispatch is a cheap looking, low rent bit of melodramatic nonsense, and not in any kind of fun way. I couldn't enjoy Deadly Dispatch in the way I enjoy other TV movies from the network TV One. Instead of enjoying the low budget camp, I felt sorry for poor Tamala Jones that she was being subjected to a feature of such limited means and imagination.

The sets for Deadly Dispatch look as if someone dressed the same hotel room or borrowed mcmansion in slightly different ways to create different hotels, businesses and homes. I understand the need to work with what you have, but the effort here is lacking. Unlike the similarly low budget TV One TV movie In Broad Daylight, which was also low budget but did well to hide it, Deadly Dispatch looks cheap to the point of unfinished.

Poor Tamala Jones, she deserves a great deal more than what she gets in Deadly Dispatch. Jones, a veteran of the ABC crime series Castle, has charm and charisma and a star presence that she is forced to dim in Deadly Dispatch so that she can fit in in the low budget, poorly-acted surroundings. It doesn't work and her talent exposes all those around her.

Deadly Dispatch is the fourth and final movie in TV One's month dedicated to "Love, Lies, and Murder," and it is by far the least of the four films featured. The best was unquestionably Sins of the Father, a wild ride of splendidly sordid and silly camp crime that features a performance by Dietrick Haddon that is off the charts high art, camp.

Sins of the Father also featured a stellar performance by A.J Johnson as a police detective, and I long for the day that she and Tamala Johnson are cast as a detective duo. They'd be perfect together with their equally strong star magnetism and genuine likability. TV One, this is potential gold I am offering you here. Cast these two brilliant actresses together and let the money roll in.

After being subjected to Deadly Dispatch, Tamala Jones deserves such an opportunity.