Danger Touch

Here's another one of these low-grade, almost soft-porn type movies. Hey, I gave it shot hoping it would be a good, suspenseful crime film. In reality, however - at least the first half of the film - it turned out to be just an excuse for Kate Vernon to show off her face, body and to have sex. Hey, I enjoyed looking at her but really, folks, this is Grade D material.

The dialog in that first huor was so bad I had a difficult time caring about the rest of the movie. I don't even remember if I finished it. Lou Diamond Phillips was an actor who started off with promise but seemed to make nothing but these kind of second-rate movies.

Kate Vernon comes off very well as a radio talk show host who wants to fulfill her own fantasies as well as give advice to her listeners.

Problem predictably develops when she involves herself in a situation with one of her callers that leads to a video tape and blackmail for the caller's not predictable reasons.

Lou Diamond Phillips does a pretty good job of directing but he miscast himself as the male lead. Otherwise this is far better than most of the genre and Ms. Vernon is awfully sexy.

This is a classic 2:30am Cinnimax flick that makes you laugh when you're not supposed to laugh. Lou Diamond Phillips comes out of nowhere to seduce an attractive Sex Therapist into situations that she talks about with her patients on a daily basis. Kate Vernon is hot which keeps the movie going, yet the cheese sets in as the plot starts to unravel. As far as the directorial debut of L.D.P, it's hard to judge his work since the majority of the shots are in the bedroom. There are some funny lines in this movie, yet I don't think they are supposed to be funny. I would recommend somebody to watch this movie, only if he/she has a decent sense of humor. Very dirty in a good kind of way and a plot that doesn't make you think to much.

Written, produced and directed by its star Lou Diamond Phillips, Dangerous Touch is an interesting debut for Mr. Phillips behind the camera. Certain parts of this film he did better than others, however.

Lou is a sexy career criminal who's trained his sites on lovely and voluptuous Kate Vernon who is a psychologist with a talk in radio show and a best seller. Kate's treating Max Gail a syndicate kingpin who is having issues.

Kate's a woman who loves sex with the joy of a Clinton era Mae West. She thinks she's found the man of her dreams when the mysterious Lou accosts and seduces her at a book signing. But he's all the time setting her up for blackmail, he wants her help to kill Max Gail by pressing on his neuroses so that he'll do it himself or his syndicate partners will out of fear that Gail will talk.

Lou's at his best directing what falls this side of a soft core porn film. The sight of a nude Kate Vernon is certainly enough to stir the young men in the audience.

Unfortunately the premise that she will be hurt by the exposure of her private sex life just doesn't ring true. Vernon's character is not Laura Schlessinger or someone who might work for Dr. James Dobson, someone who'd really be hurt by such a scandal. She comes across as a woman with a real healthy appetite for the erotic and exotic. Knowing that what happens in the end just doesn't make any sense.

Still Lou Diamond Phillips as director and star has nothing to be ashamed of. But he should have asked me about the script.

Obviously, somebody's been attending the Joe Esztherhas (sp?) School of Screenwriting. Oh, it's not too tough to see why Lou wanted to do this flick...with Kate Vernon as his co-star; what horny, red-blooded actor wouldn't? But even with the few interesting plot twists this offers above the usual soft-core porn cable fodder, this one still makes you feel like you need to spray your TV screen with Lysol afterwards.

Vernon is a talk-show sex therapist who counsels listeners by day, then medicates herself by night with a plethora of anonymous sexual encounters, (we can only assume she does it a lot, because we only get to see one of them, and on-screen sex never looked so simulated. Physician, heal thyself, indeed!)

Of course, the Usual Thing In Sexual Thrillers happens: she is accosted at a book signing by the 'mysterious' Phillips, who also shadows her to the home of a close friend, (benefactor or hanger-on, it's never made very clear), where they also have their First Monumental Encounter.

She's left a little embarassed but turned on at how he left her and how well he seems to know what she likes, blah, blah, blah, the routine stuff. Then at their next meeting, things take a surprising and potentially nasty turn, but to say just how would spoil one of the few surprises the film has to offer.

As a cross between Dr. Ruth and Dr. Laura, (without the latter's hypocritical moralizing) in the body of a Playboy model, Vernon gives the role what depth she can, but this is definitely Lou's baby all the way, and make no mistake about it, she's there primarily to serve as the object of his affection, rejection, you name it. Having power fantasies about controlling beautiful, impetuous women is not necessarily a bad thing, but do we have to be subjected to these moviemaking-as-sex-therapy entries? Lou has the exhibitionist's drive to execute his fantasies, but he lacks Joe's commitment to play it to the bone (pardon the pun), no matter how twisted the proceedings may get, which places TOUCH squarely in the 'Skinamax-After-Midnight' category.

And I really resented the total misuse of Max Gail and Mitch Pileggi, two actors who are much better than the projects they usually wind up getting. Showing up as convenient plot devices-cum-target practice dummies is not their true forte; they're much better than that, and hopefully the projects they get in the future will be as well.

One of the few redeeming qualities given any of the characters, is that by the end, Vernon at least has learned how to embrace her sexuality and accept her carnal idiosyncracies as normal and even healthy, unusual for a "sexual thriller," where the heroine is usually required to appear chaste, demure and repentant by the time the credits roll. She has finally learned to take her own advice, something few of us in the real world ever do.

Not quite thrilling enough to serve as a second-tier BASIC INSTINCT knockoff, and not steamy enough to arouse as much as bargain-rate porno, DANGEROUS TOUCH provides a little tittilation, but you won't respect yourself in the morning. Not so much for the middling prurience, but for the fact that this is ninety minutes of your life that can't be refunded.