Zebra Lounge

In "Zebra Lounge" a married couple decides to try "swinging" and gets more than they bargained for. Although offering an okay complement of second-tier acting with the emphasis on drama over sexsationalism, "ZL" has the look and feel of a soap opera with a naive screenplay, too many plot-holes, and obviously scripted characters. Very ordinary stuff for hard up channel surfers.

Saw this a long time ago and watched again this weekend and still think the writers and director ruined it. They had it heading down the path as an all time great erotic R rated movie and pulled the plug on it after the swimming pool scene. I don't know why they did that but it ruined an otherwise excellent adult movie. Maybe they couldn't figure out how to end it, keeping it in the same context as it started out.

Caught this on cable last night (part of my self-inflicted double feature with the much-better Cellular), and needless to say, it started off promising but deteriorated far too quickly into spineless, unimaginative drivel, and not enough sex (steamy or otherwise) to justify it. Found myself making a list in my head about what I needed to buy at the supermarket during the sex scenes, in fact, and during the other scenes, where the 2 virgin swingers find themselves relentlessly pursued by the deranged Baldwin brother and his lunatic wife (way to go, Kristy - you sure can pick 'em), I was going over my strategy for a Neopets game in my head.

Fatal attraction for the swingers set. I am hard pressed to say anything nice about this film. Dull, stiffly acted by characters that you don't really care about. No sense of tension, terror or jeopardy seems to develop. The soft-core porn scenes only marginally make the film watchable. The director should have gone the whole way and dispensed with the story and focused on the equally unlikely rompings of the characters. Life is too short to spend on trifles like this. Save yourself the time: I wish I did.

The upper middle class Wendy Barnet (Brandy Ledford) and Alan Barnet (Cameron Daddo) are married with children and live in the suburbs. Alan is disputing a promotion with his co-worker Neil Bradley (Vincent Corazza) but his relationship with Wendy is boring. They decide to buy a swingers magazine and contact an attractive couple to rekindle their sex life. The couple Louise (Kristy Swanson) and Jack Bauer (Stephen Baldwin) schedule a date with them at the Zebra Lounge and they go to a place where they swap wives. Wendy and Alan feel satisfied with the encounter but Louise and Jack want to meet them again. Soon they find how persistent Jack is.

"Zebra Lounge" is a sexy but lame erotic-thriller. The story is predictable and full of roles. But Kristy Swanson and Brandy Ledford are very sexy and make this film worthwhile watching. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Encontro Secreto" ("Secret encounter")