Bullet Points: My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher

In this edition of Bullet Points I am going to stray from our usual fare. There won’t be any elite military types blowing stuff up. There won’t be any martial arts mayhem. There won’t be any cyborgs on the loose. There won’t be any crazy car chases either. But there will be action… of the baby snatching kind!

That’s right, once again Bulletproof Action goes off the beaten path as I review a brand new Lifetime movie, 2023’s My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher… part of Lifetime Movie Network’s “Don’t Mess With Mommy” collection.

• Baby Love: As the movie begins everything is wonderful for Penelope (Adrienne Thomas) and her husband Richie (Matthew Lawrence, Money Plane). They just closed on their dream home, they are both thriving professionally and most importantly, they are expecting their first child, something they thought would never happen… Things aren’t as peachy for Penelope’s best friend Eve (Jennifer Taylor) and they are about to get much worse. While Penelope’s husband Richie’s business is taking off, Eve’s husband Tom (Paul London, Killer Competition) is struggling to get his catering business off the ground and in a good place financially.

• Tragedy Strikes: The first time we see Tom, he has arrived home after a long day at work… I would like to point out that Tom is wearing a hideous western print shirt (that he should have dry cleaned and burned)… Tom finds Eve taking care of her house plants and the two talk about how Eve will soon have a real baby to take care of. Yes, Eve is pregnant too.. Eve tells Tom she is going to take a shower and while she is doing that, Tom turns on some smooth jazz music and starts doing his magic in the kitchen. Tom’s dinner prep is interrupted when he hears Eve scream from the bathroom, he rushes in and finds Eve passed out in the shower… Eve has sadly had a miscarriage.
• Eve of Destruction: Based on the preview and the synopsis, I was coming into My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher thinking the trauma of the miscarriage is what pushed Eve over the edge and turned her from Penelope’s best friend to her worst enemy…. however thanks to some flashbacks that train of thought was quickly derailed. Eve’s evil ways could be traced back much further, which makes some of the lengths she goes too to get what she wants in the movie more believable. Props to Jennifer Taylor for her work. I genuinely disliked Eve more and more and as she did everything she could to destroy the happy life of Penelope and Richie.

• Biased Opinion?: Whether you have the good fortune to know Paul London personally or even just based on what you’ve seen over the course of his professional wrestling career… Paul is a unique individual, a free spirit and not your average everyday normal guy. So to see Paul playing the part of Tom, an average everyday normal guy, who then has to deal with one of the worst things a couple can go through, then as the guy getting caught in his wife’s web of lies and ultimately becoming a victim of her devious mind games… that showed acting ability and range, that Paul hasn’t had the opportunity to showcase on national television before.

There is a reason there are so many Lifetime Movies and why they will probably never stop churning them out. Lifetime knows their audience and more importantly knows what their audience wants and that is usually plenty of scandal, deceit, a little bit of violence and like most genres good triumphing over evil.

My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher checks all of those boxes and features some stand out performances from Jennifer Taylor and Paul London. And I can’t leave out Matthew Lawrence and Adrienne Thomas… they were easy to like and care about, which made it even easier to hate the Eve character.

I also can’t leave out these Bonus Bullet Points…

• Family Affair: Matthew Lawrence’s brother, Andrew Lawrence was the director of My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher. And Donna Lawrence, aka Matthew and Andrew’s mom, played Dr. Jones, the fertility specialist.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Matthew Lawrence and Paul London brawl, then My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher is the movie for you.
• Out of Context Quote: “Pull up your shirt. You’re going to feel a little prick.”
• AKA: My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher was originally titled Baby Dust. The name change was for the better and it certainly is more straight forward.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see a confetti cannon used as a weapon, then My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher is the movie for you.
• The Tradition Continues: My Best Friend the Baby Snatcher joins such “snatcher” classics as 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1972’s The Mind Snatchers, 1973’s The Candy Snatchers, 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1989’s Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers.