Justice de femme

I briefly remember this when I was a teen. I heard about this movie, at the time, from my friend. I ended up taking his copy of it & watching it. I did return it, without him knowing.

Now, years later, I was very interested in this movie again, so I bought it off Ebay. After receiving it in the mail yesterday & watching it. This isn't that bad of an action movie. Its very low budget & has a good performance from a young Shannon Tweed, who is the only "big" name person that I know of, in this movie.

I can tell that this is a very under-rated movie & that I'm the 2nd person leaving a comment for this movie. :) I say, this is worth a rent, if you're looking for a low budget action movie or a movie with hot women who get naked too.

I love that tag line too: 'They're sexy, smart & oh, so deadly!'

Lethal Woman is an adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game (1932), but oh boy is it a loose one.

It tells the story of a soldier who is raped by her commanding officer. When he is found innocent in a court of law and betrayed by the man she loves she finds herself going down a very dark route in the name of redemption.

The classic tale of hunting people is present but takes a bit of a backseat and ultimately the more you think about the concept the more absurd it gets. Seriously, watch the movie and then think about the way the "Encounters" play out. It's ridiculous.

Starring erotic thriller veteran Shannon Tweed she almost makes it through the film without exposing herself, almost.

It's a passable enough attempt but as an adaptation of a superior film it falls somewhat flat. It struggles to find its identity, it's not action packed, it's not dramatic and for those wondering since it's a Tweed movie it's not even sexy.

Not the worst adaptation, but certainly a shameless one.

The Good:

Interesting twist

The Bad:

Rather flat

A bit silly

A female army cadet, assaulted by her commanding officer and unable to obtain justice through a military court, decides to get even. So she buys an island (as you do) recruits other rape victims to help (naturally all beauty-queen-supermodel material) and invites each of the men who have wronged her on an 'erotic adventure' – in fact to be hunted down and killed. As the movie begins, the last of them, the CO himself, sets off cheerfully and alone to the mysterious island – even though he must know that all the others have vanished. And so a tough guy hero type from special ops is sent to sort things out.

The story is nonsense, the plot full of holes big enough to drive a tank through, the d-list TV actors patchy to poor, the characters paper-thin and the dialog corny. There are no surprises and the action is never that exciting or convincing. The island locations are pretty, but this is very low budget stuff. Some people will no doubt enjoy the women undressing every chance they get, but there is no sex, little graphic violence and this wouldn't get an 18 rating today.

The biggest problem is the premise, not so much idiotic as idiotically presented. Top of all her classes, including unarmed combat, we're told several times how the cadet has just creamed a male soldier in the gym. Her CO asks her to back off so the poor men in her class can have a chance. When she refuses, he simply lays her across his desk and rapes her. Does he use a weapon? No. Does he hit her? No, she is unmarked by the attack. Does this unarmed combat A-student fight back? Not at all that we see. Does she scream or call for help? No – soldiers posted just outside the door hear only feeble whimpers. Someone who could be overpowered so easily by a single unarmed assailant can never be effectively transformed into the threat needed to make this movie work.

My review was written in May 1989 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Lethal Woman" is an unconvincing revenge pic, suitable as a direct-to-video exploitation genre title.

Pic originally was called "The Most Dangerous Woman Alive" and in fact is a sex-switch on the classic "Most Dangerous Gamer" horror format of humans as prey.

Merete Van Kamp, Dutch thesp who closely resembles Michelle Pfeiffe this time out, plays an army brat who's raped by her commanding officer Col. Maxim (James Luisi, playing heavy in the old twirling-mustache mode). Fellow soldiers and even Van Kamp's fiance (Deon Stewardson) cover up for the colonel.

Embittered, Van Kamp has rounded up other rape victims, including statuesque Shannon Tweed, and set up shop on an all-woman island. There she lures all the men involved in the original rape indent and court-martials them one by one, hunts them down and kills them in bloodthirsty fashion. Robert Lipton is the retired special forces expert who's assigned by the army to put a stop to Van Kamp's antisocial behavior.

Lensed in South Africa, site of several Film Ventures '70s hits (e.g., "Kill or Be Killed" with James Ryan0, pic is competently made but phony. Supporting cast has trouble simulating the all-American accents and no suspense is generated in final reels when the obviously competent Lipton fights various starlets for survival.

Van Kamp is hamstrung in a nasty role, with Tweed stealing the spotlight, especially when the latter delivers the exploitation goods in a topless tryst in the surf with Lipton, simulating "From Here to Eternity" pose. Pic could have used more lighter moments. It's played dead serious by helmer Christian Marnham and is ultimately boring.

I'm kind of surprised that this movie isn't better known. Maybe it came out at the wrong time - it would have been more at home in the more daring 70s. The premise - a role-reversal of "The Most Dangerous Game" with an army of women led by an abused ex-soldier hunting down and decapitating corrupt military men on a remote island - is simply irresistible. Sure, it may be heavy-handed as a feminist allegory, and it doesn't make much sense either (it takes 7 years and 20 missing men for some thick army heads to figure out that something is wrong, and when they do they send only one man "undercover" on the island, much like a sheep is sent to the slaughterhouse), but it is great fun on a trash/cult level, with some intense moments especially near the end. After all, we all got to leave this world sometime, and dying by the hand (or the foot, or the knife, or the arrow) of Merete Van Kamp must rank as one of the best ways to go! (**1/2)