The Big Hustle

This is a low budget soft-core with a gangster-chase motif.

The gangsters aren't menacing enough to be interesting (try the recent _Payback_ with Mel Gibson for that), and they aren't silly enough to make it an entertaining comedy.

Kim Dawson is way past her prime here. But Regina Russell is cute and sexy and I hope we see a lot more of her in the future. Lori-Dawn Messuri is nice to look at, too, and does a great job with a dull script.

There's no passion in the sex scenes; it's as if everyone (except Messuri, who deserves a better story) is just going through the motions because that's the kind of movie they're in. Leland Price could take a lesson from Cybil Richards (_Femalien_ etc); sex is more fun if the partners *like* each other, even in a soft-core.

Stephen Francis plays the hapless hero. The plot says he's got an active fantasy life (an excuse to insert a couple of amusing fantasy sequences), despite the fact he happens to get laid all the time for no particular reason.

Why does this character, in every soft-core ever made, *always* have a three day stubble? Is there something sexy about that and I'm just missing it? Somebody please buy that guy a razor, or let him grow a real beard.

The "active fantasy life" the male protagonist has is that of being sexually submissive to women. The gangster plot is dull and contrived, as are the slo-mo vanilla sex scenes. If you're into femdom/malesub, you might like this film, but even then the male bondage scenes are lame. Loridawn Messuri is a treat, but not enough of one to redeem this boring sex film.