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.

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.

Lou Diamond Phillips in an erotic thriller?!?! I think he'd be one of the last people just about anyone would think of appearing in this particular film genre, except apparently for Lou Diamond Phillips himself, who not only wrote the script but sat in the director's chair. As you might expect, the sex scenes involving him are pretty silly, not just for the fact that he uses an obvious body double on several occasions. Other faults with the movie include that it goes on for too long. Still, while the movie may overstay its welcome, I can't honestly say that the movie became boring at any moment. I was curious enough to stay until the very end. Also, while this is a low budget movie, Phillips crafts the movie in a way to make the production values acceptable. If it comes on cable during a slow night, you could do a lot worse.

A radio sex therapist (Kate Vernon) falls for a mysterious man (Lou Diamond Phillips) who is actually an ex-con and soon she gets caught in a crazed web of lies, deceit and sexual blackmail. Underworld figures and hired thugs aplenty in this silly would-be thriller that shows a little more skin and a little more stupidity than most others of the sorry genre. Phillips' attempt at directing a theatrical feature falls flat due to late-night cable ideas and a cast that seems dazed by the entire venture. Vernon is made out to be smart and sophisticated, but she falls under Phillips' spell almost immediately. Thankfully, most viewers with any taste will not fall under any incantation this movie throws at them. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).