Over Exposed

This is a nice little film which has incredible amounts of production value for a low-budget feature, such production value including not only a wide range of locations all over southern California but a variety of sexy and interesting characters. This is probably the first feature to star Monique Gabrielle that does more than ask her to off her shirt (which she of course does, thank God), thus launching her career as "Queen of the B Films."

Paul Eagleton does a good job as the sex-crazed photographer, Richard Matherson, who has seen (and screwed) it all. Board out his skull with gorgeous women, Matherson eventually happens across Angela Quail (Monique Gabrielle) who forces him to confront himself and change his ways. Marty Korse does a crisp and professional job playing Matherson's drooling, side-kick who eventually learns from his Master things that can't be taught.

The plot for this movie could be better, but then in the games of love, aren't all the plots basically the same? Ultimately the film holds our interest to the bitter-sweet end.

A partial list of the obvious problems with this movie:

* mic'ing poor during opening sequence; voices become louder/softer depending on direction of actor's head (toward/away from mic)

* opening credits hard to read (color/contrast)

* lousy, loud music during opening credits drowns out audio, including answering machine messages (are they important? we can't tell)

* the "look" of shots (light levels? calibration?) is inconsistent

* weird audio in the bus/gun scene, like another track is on FF play along with the native audio

* boom mic visible in several shots

The movie feels a lot like a porno movie, but (mostly) without the porn (there's some nudity in a few scenes and some implied sex, but no explicit activity). The result is a lackluster movie that definitely does not deserve a 5.9 rating, which it currently has. I was tempted to rate it a 3, but I gave it a 4 because somehow it did (as the other reviewer also said) hold my interest until the end, despite the plot being thin and cliché-ridden. Maybe it was just morbid curiosity, or maybe Monique Gabrielle does have some charisma to accompany her fabulous figure. It isn't due to acting prowess -- from anyone.

Frankly, I can't recommend this one to anybody, but if you're a fan of someone involved with it, just don't be expecting much, and hopefully you'll at least be entertained by the intentional and unintentional humor and foibles of this low-budget melodrama.