When a movie is made in 2005 but is not released until 2007, it usually means some pretty bad things. It usually means the studio was arguing whether to release it to the big screen or just dump it onto DVD. When a movie is billed as an erotic thriller it also usually means something pretty bad and when it is released the same week as another bad erotic thriller, well..you get the point. So why would I ever rent this movie that has the odds so stacked against it? Why would I rent a movie that boasts a mostly unknown woman as the centerpiece for the sex and thrills? Well, I just happen to love erotic thrillers. They are the perfect amount of cheese to get me through 90 minutes of my day. So did this one rise to the occasion?
Ford Cole( Yes, Ford Cole- Ray Liotta) is a District Attorney on the rise, making his way to Mayor. He is being interviewed by Ty Trippin (Chiwetel Ejiofor) on a night nearing the election when he gets a call that his best prosecutor, Nora Timmer (Lolene Blalock) has just shot and killed a man. She claims it was rape and it is an open and shut case, right? She tells the story of how she met a guy named Isaac Duperde (Mekhi Phifer, seen only in flashbacks) and how he raped her and she had to finish him off before he finished off inside her. It all seems to be true until we meet Luther Pinks (L.L Cool J) and he weaves a completely different tale of how this happened. He claims Timmer seduced Duperde and he even had intimate details of Timmer's naked body, that Cole knows because he is also sleeping with her. Turns out Timmer was trying to get Duperde to testify against the biggest criminal int eh city and she was trying to seduce him into doing it, or was she? Cole is on a race against the clock as he tries to figure out who is telling the truth and who is lying. Along the way he discovers some very unsettling information about his girl and himself. See, it turns out his campaign is being back by the big criminal and if any of this gets leaked his entire career comes crashing down.
This movie seems to be borrowing from The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction. Relying on their non-linear story telling devices and twists and turns, but the problem here is that none of the twists are shocking because if you are paying attention it is easy to figure just about all of it before the characters do. That is not to say it is an awful movie, just an average one. Liotta is solid as a man realizing he is on the verge of losing everything and in the flashbacks Phifer is his usual solid self. Taye Diggs shows up for some much needed exposition and is wasted, as usual. Blalock is the key to this thing though. Her character is who is at the center of this possible conspiracy. Is she good or bad? Is she black or white? Yes, that is key. See this movie plays off the idea that this woman is bi-racial, that depending on the light, she can walk with white people or walk with black people. A lot of time is spent driving that theory home with us, including some very unnecessary lighting effects, just in case we don't understand the concept of a light skinned black girl.
I wanted to like this movie but it isn't very erotic or very thrilling. The sex is excruciatingly timid considering how sexual they make the main girl to be. The dialogue is awful, especially this gimmick of L.L Cool J's character remembering people and moments by relating them all to smells of food, yes smells of food. One day Timmer smells like mashed potatoes and so on. The whole white and black issue seems to be a pointless diversion from the truth, a red herring to keep us from figuring out just who is who and what exactly is going on, but it isn't an interesting enough question to have thrown me off the scent of what was really going on. Ray Liotta is better than this and Taye Diggs needs to start doing work that shows the promise he showed in his early films because taking these wasted roles is just sad to see.
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