Just Ask My Children

Scott (Jeffrey Nordling) and Brenda (Virginia Madsen) are just about the two most normal people in the world. Unfortunately, their good friends ask Scott to be a character witness in an upcoming court case, which is when everything goes to shit. The mother/mother-in-law of that couple is a total whack job, who believes that they are molesting their children. Once the Kniffen family helps out, she decides they must be crazy molesters too.

Cut to the Kniffens losing their kids. This is one of those ultimate made-for-TV moments with the cops rushing in and dragging the kids off as Brenda screams in horror. A few months of constantly browbeating the kids and they testify in court that their parents did stuff like hang them upside down while their mom went down on them. The fact that they never found any signs of physical or sexual abuse means nothing because these kids were molested!

Sadly, the movie then covers like 10+ years in 30 minutes or so. Brenda and Scott write letters to each other, vowing to stay together no matter what. Since they were sentenced to more than 1,000 years in federal prison, this seems kind of sad. Brenda also gets into it with a feisty black woman in prison. The woman looks like she could kick Brenda's ass with one arm tied behind her back, but since Brenda no longer gives a shit about her life, she totally takes her down.

Brandon and Brian (the kids) grow up a little and start wondering about what actually happened. Brian realizes that they were never molested, while Brandon joins the military and thinks that it must have happened. Can I just point out here that Dan Byrd (“The Hills Have Eyes,” “Easy A”) plays Brian at one point and Gregory Smith (“Everwood”) plays him as a teen. Oh and Scott Bailey plays older Brian. Not only does he have the same name as a guy I went to school with, but he was totally on “Guiding Light”!

Anyway, Brandon doesn't want to admit that it never happened because that would mean that him and his crazy brother put their parents away for over a decade. Their grandparents spend years defending the parents and trying to get them released, but the court rules that they can never, ever talk to the kids about what happened.

Brandon and Brian finally admit that nothing happened, which means nothing to the DA. It doesn't even matter when they learn that other cases probably came about because of crazy in-laws and a wackado lawyer. The poor grandma dies, but others keep pressing the story. Finally, the Kniffens get released from prison and I guess reunited with their kids. Sadly enough, the movie tells us that the other couple are still behind bars.