Night Eyes

In the early 1990s, there was a craze in Hollywood (mostly in the direct-to-video industry) for the "erotic thriller". After several years the craze came to an end and has not made a comeback, probably for one simple reason - these movies were awful, and "Night Eyes" is no exception. For a real cheapie, I'll admit that the production values aren't too bad, and the acting by most of the players is passable. But the movie is for the most part a chore to sit through. I rented the unrated version, but there is surprisingly not a lot of nudity (and no full-frontal nudity) or on screen sex. In fact, there is only one scene that I found was erotic (and only mildly so), and it happens after more than an hour of the running time has passed. Maybe others might find this movie hot - the movie was popular enough to spawn three sequels - but as for me, I was bored by the experience.

The rock star Brian Walker (Warwick Sims) is surprised by his wife Nicky (Tanya Roberts) shagging a woman in the bathroom in a party. Nicky asks the divorce, and Brian hires a security company to spy on her to prove that she is unfaithful and has love affairs. The security guard Will Griffith (Andrew Stevens) hides a camera in her bedroom and peeps on Nicky having sex with her lover but he hides the truth from Brian. Will protects Nicky from the violent Brian and they have a love affair. Nicky gets a restraint order against Brian and one night he breaks in the house and Will, who has fallen in love with Nicky, kills him with three shots. Will is prosecuted for the death of Brian, and he finds that Brian apparently was not the responsible for the aggressions to Nicky. Will investigates and discovers the truth about the whole case.

"Night Eyes" was a successful erotic thriller in the 90's, when I saw this movie twice. Today I have decided to watch my VHS again and the sexy femme fatale Tanya Roberts really makes this flick worthwhile. The flawed story has a reasonable development but the conclusion is absolutely disappointing and senseless. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Olhos Noturnos" ("Night Eyes")

Note: On 29 July 2021, I saw this film again.

Better then you might expect sex thriller finds Andrew Stevens being security guard for sexy Tanya Roberts who is in the middle of a multi-million dollar divorce. However, the better he gets to know her, the more he wants her and soon the two of them are engaged in a passionate affair.

Not much plot wise to recommend about this movie, but Tanya Roberts good performance keeps you watching and the sex scenes are nice and steamy with the score providing just the right touch. Unrated; Extreme Sexual Content, Nudity, Mild Violence.

Washed-out drunken rock star Brian Walker is having sex in the bathroom at his party and his wife Nikki (Tanya Roberts) catches him. He immediately announces their divorce in front of the guests. He hires security guards Ernie and Will Griffith (Andrew Stevens) to spy on her. They install cameras around her home as well as a secret one in her bedroom. Will watches her have sex with Michael Vincent. He hides it from Brian. He becomes obsessed and starts an affair himself with her. Brian runs into them at a gallery and gets combative. Brian breaks in one night and Will chases him off. After almost running over her, Nikki gets a restraining order against Brain despite his claim of an alibi. Brian comes in with a gun and Will shoots him but there's more to the story.

The plot is actually functional considering its B-movie nature. The acting is pretty stiff and the production is second rate. Stevens and Roberts are basically good enough and pretty enough to do the job. There is some T&A but it's not actually the main driver in this movie. The twist isn't unexpected. This is either a well written soft porn movie or a weakly made real movie.

The most common description used about "Night Eyes", both on this board and elsewhere, is "erotic thriller"; no fewer than seven of the previous twelve reviewers use this phrase. It is not, however, a particularly accurate description. The phrase "erotic thriller" generally suggests a softcore porno film in which a generic thriller plot is used to provide the links between, and a rationale for, numerous sex scenes. There have, of course, been plenty of films of that type, but this is not one of them. Although an adulterous love affair forms the mainspring of the plot, there are no actual love scenes and no nudity. There is a lot more eroticism in some mainstream Hollywood thrillers from this period such as "Fatal Attraction".

Nikki Walker, the estranged wife of a millionaire British rock star, hires Night Eyes, a firm of security consultants, to provide security at her mansion. Unknown to her, however, the company has been bribed by her husband Brian to spy on her and find evidence that she is having an affair. Brian Walker and his lawyer believe that if they can find such evidence they will be able to achieve a much more favourable financial settlement from the courts. (This implies that the Californian courts take, or at least took in the early nineties, a very moralistic attitude to divorce. I cannot imagine a British court reducing a wife's financial settlement on the grounds that she had formed a sexual relationship with another man after separating from her husband). Things, however, do not go according to plan. Will Griffith, the bodyguard who is supposed to be spying on Nikki, falls in love with the attractive young woman. Not only does he hide from Brian's lawyer the fact that Nikki is having an affair with Michael Vincent, a film star, he also begins sleeping with her himself. The movie then chronicles the disastrous consequences of this relationship.

The best among the cast is probably the little-known actor Warwick Sims as the hedonistic, self-obsessed rock star Brian, probably based on a combination of several British rockers from around this period. (No names mentioned). None of the other actors, however, makes any impression. Tanya Roberts could hardly be described as little-known; indeed, as a Playboy model and Charlie's Angel and Bond Girl she was a well-known celebrity during the eighties and early nineties. Her fame, however, had more to do with her looks than with her talent, a quality with which she was notably under-endowed. (Having a Hollywood scriptwriter for a husband probably helped as well). Here she seems to wander through the film as though in a trance, unable to connect with anyone around her. She had already received two Razzie "Worst Actress" nominations for "Sheena" and "A View to a Kill", and was lucky not to receive a third here. Andrew Stevens as Will is slightly better, but "slightly better than dreadful" is hardly high praise.

In 1990 some people obviously liked this film; it was a financial success at the box-office, having been made on a very small budget, and spawned three sequels, none of which I have seen. Today, however, it comes across as a very poor example of the standard nineties thriller, with second-rate (or in Roberts' case third-rate) acting and a hackneyed paranoid plot revolving around the questions of "who can trust whom?" and "who is betraying whom?" Less erotic thriller than neurotic thriller. 4/10