I kinda fibbed in that
description above. Yes, it is a DVD, and it appears
to be a completely legal one, but be that as it may,
it is actually just an old VHS print that has been
digitized. I'm not sure we'll ever get anything
better, given the unimportance of the film. There
may be a pristine 35MM version sitting around in a
warehouse somewhere, just waiting to be transferred
to HD digital and transferred to Blu-Ray. I'll bet
there is, because there are
some
great stills from the film on its IMDb page.
But let's be realistic. This ain't The Magnificent
Fucking Ambersons, so nobody's going to be combing
that warehouse for this film at any time soon.
Sean Young plays an ambitious, cold Assistant DA in
Atlanta. She is willing to do anything for her
career. In order to increase her conviction rate,
she tags along on important busts to make sure the
police do everything by the book. She's not just
working the superior performance angle. She's also
sleeping with her boss, the DA, and this is
certainly for love, because she confesses in one
scene that she doesn't like a man inside her,
doesn't even like being touched, and has never had
an orgasm. So we are to deduce these points: (1)
she's giving head to get ahead; (2) she's a
smoldering cauldron of sexual frustration.
She becomes obsessed with the case of a serial
sexual predator who seduces women by posing as a
famous photographer. This plot was inspired by an
actual case involving such a man who lured women by
posing as photographer Richard Avedon. She would
love to prosecute the man, but she isn't sure of his
real identity, and can't get any of the victims to
help in any way. It seems that the con man is quite
charming, and has a gift for reading the secret
insecurities and desires of his victims, and for
choosing women who are particularly susceptible to
his particular wiles. He has actually given the
women a wish-fulfilling experience by sexually
exploiting them, and he has left them too conflicted
to testify.
She decides to take matters into her own hands. She
eventually figures out his pattern and uses herself
as bait. It works. She gets him to pick her up, and
accompanies him to a hotel room, where she intends
to arrest him as soon as he tries something more
significant than impersonating a photographer. He,
however, is no dummy. He senses that something is
wrong, so he rifles through her purse while she is
in the bathroom, identifies her, and skedaddles from
the hotel immediately, repairing to his evil lair in
the bayou.
You can probably figure out what comes next. She
follows him into the bayou and eventually finds him.
Now we have the meeting of a man who knows how to
fulfill the unspoken desires and exploit the sexual
insecurities of women, and a woman who is filled
with sexual confusion and unfullfilled desires. When
she confronts him, intending to make an arrest, he
asks, "Why are you REALLY here?"
Will she arrest him, or will she fall for him? Or is
she a closeted lesbian, therefore immune to his
charms?
I won't spoil it for you, but I will note that the
ending is totally unsatisfying. Rumor has it that
the producers hated the director's original ending
so much that they just chopped it out and left
things sort of in limbo.
This film isn't good at all, but it might have been
because it has some real positives. The idea is
intriguing, and Patrick Bergin is quite effective as
the predator who is simultaneously menacing and
beguiling, sinister and charming. The film is really
dragged down, however, by some bizarre monochromatic
sequences that are supposed to be the memories
and/or fantasies of the Sean Young character, and
are supposed to show us why she is the way she is.
The director's intentions were good here, in that
she was trying for a deep character study, but the
execution of the scenes is just awful. Some of the
scenes are absolutely confusing, and seem to involve
some childhood trauma. The other ones take place in
some kind of alternate universe where she and the
sexual predator become tender and passionate lovers.
The scenes are not only confusing, but they are
clumsily inserted into the "real" action, and
haphazardly edited. The "fantasy" sex scene between
the prosecutor and the predator is more annoying
than erotic. Or maybe the character is so far lost
in self-loathing that she won't even allow herself a
pleasant fantasy.
The film has one additional, and very significant,
liability: Sean Young is no Meryl Streep. Her facial
expressions, or lack thereof, make it difficult to
figure out which emotions she is experiencing, and
her line readings are nearly robotic. It's easy to
understand why she was credible as an emotionless
replicant in her greatest role.
IMDb viewers rate this a dismal 4.2, and that's
probably fair, but I think you might be able to
create a winner if you remade this with Jessica
Chastain in the lead and a better presentation of
the fantasies and flashbacks.
===
On the other hand, there is plenty of nudity.
Several other minor characters expose their breasts,
but the quality is so poor that I didn't capture
those scenes. Of course I could not resist the full
frontal and rear nudity from Sean Young.