The Assault

IMDb
Sam Gleason arrives in a new town where high school football is the backbone of the community. When she accuses a member of the team of committing heinous acts against her on a night she can't even remember, will anyone believe her?



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One look at the new Lifetime movie The Assault – about a cheerleader raped by members of the football team while drunk, and the subsequent social media documentation and cover-up — and it’s clear that it was based on the recent Steubenville rape case. “Ripped from the headlines” movies always make me nervous, because the result is often an exploitative and disrespectful attempt to get ratings, rather than a compassionate account of a serious story and/or a call to action to change things. In this movie’s case, I felt like a compassionate account was hidden in there somewhere (parts of it did pull me in and get me emotional), but unfortunately they were covered up by layer after layer of cliche and coincidence and convenience.

Needless to say when you’re dealing with a Lifetime movie, this account of the story adds and/or changes a lot of details when it really shouldn’t have had to. The true story is already pretty dramatic and compelling, and it opened up an important dialogue about rape culture. It offers a lot for the movie to examine, but unfortunately it ignored that in favor of silly plotlines. It’s key with these types of movies that things feel believable, like they could actually happen in real life, because they dohappen in real life, and viewers need to understand that. Unfortunately Lifetime’s portrayal made it feel less like an account of a real issue and more like a fantasy.

1. The movie starts with the victim (Sam) dramatically lighting herself on fire at a football game.

The film clearly wants viewers to know what a traumatic experience being raped was for this girl, and apparently the only way to get that across is to have her publicly attempt suicide in the most dramatic way possible. Subtlety is not in Lifetime’s vocabulary, after all.

2. Sam also recently lost her mother.

I know Lifetime lives for giving their characters past trauma to deal with, but isn’t a rape trauma enough? In this case, our heroine doesn’t need a dead mother for us to feel for her. The whole premise of this movie already does that.

3. The detective investigating the case is the football coach’s sister.

They also have a strained relationship, and she just recently moved to his town. Really? REALLY?

4. The detective also recently lost her mother.

Apparently in order for her and Sam to relate to each other and come to an understanding, they have to bond over a very specific shared life experience. Oh, but wait until you hear the next item on our list.

5. The detective was also raped while intoxicated.

That’s right. As we all know, Lifetime movie detectives can never work on a case that isn’t incredibly personal to them. So obviously her football coach brother has to tell her that locking up his players won’t change what happened to her, adding that they “were all drunk” that night. One day Lifetime will grasp the concept that sympathy doesn’t require identical life experience, but I guess they’re not there yet.

6. Sam’s former BFF returns to her life to help her piece together the details of that night.

It’s always “We used to be best friends, but then you got popular and you haven’t talked to me in five years, but now this tragedy has brought us back together.” It’s been done approximately 15 million times before. It’s just annoying now.

7. Sam broke up with her boyfriend the night of the rape, and he witnessed the aftermath but didn’t say anything.

Because in addition to losing her mom, being raped, and attempting suicide, let’s add some heartbreak and betrayal.

8. The case is tied up neatly thanks to an extremely incriminating video.

The football coach had initially released a video that made it look like Sam had asked the players to have sex with her. But when the full video gets released, it turns out it was edited, and Sam is clearly screaming “No” and “This isn’t what I want.” Unfortunately, the real case wasn’t so simple; the victim was deemed too incapacitated to give consent. But this movie ignores that in favor of a cut-and-dry, let’s-wrap-this-up approach, which unfortunately sends the message that rape is always as black and white as that, which it isn’t — as was shown by the case that inspired this whole movie. Do you see the problem?

9. The movie ends with an “Oh captain, my captain!” scene.

Apparently things still weren’t dramatic enough, so after the rapists have been brought to justice, the movie ends with Sam standing on the football field while her BFF plays the recording of her rape on the loudspeakers. Everyone is very emotional, some of the players remove their helmets, her father holds her hand, the people in the bleachers stand up in solidarity with her, etc.

If you peeled away all of these cliches and attempts to make an already extremely dramatic and affecting story even more dramatic and affecting, there might have been a compelling and compassionate movie under there. But unfortunately it would only be like fifteen minutes long.

Full Movie on Xmovie8