Undercover

UNDERCOVER (3 outta 5 stars) Well, I assumed this was a "real" movie... the video box and plot description seemed to indicate that... but 5 minutes into the flick it becomes obvious that this is softcore porn (tipoffs: frequent gratuitous nude grappling, obviously phony names in the credits). The amazing thing to me was: it actually works as a fairly routine police thriller as well as a sex movie! Not a great thriller by any stretch of the imagination... but the acting is competent, the script is decent and the premise is actually explored with more candor and honesty than it would have been in a "real" movie. A sexy, tomboy female cop (Athena Massey) goes undercover in a high-class whorehouse to try and track someone who is killing off the girls. She is supposed to be sheltered from having actual sex by other undercover cops posing as clients and giving a secret password. Unfortunately the password turns out to be a little too commonplace an expression in a place like this and she finds herself having to deal with actual clients. Well, you don't expect the girl to break her cover, do you? This is her job after all... This has always been a favorite theme of mine in undercover cop movies... how far can/should a cop go in order to play their role? Usually in mainstream movies the issue gets side-stepped and the cop never has to actually go all the way to protect their cover... but that's not the case here. Nice performance by actor Tom Tayback as the police sergeant (something about his voice and manner made me think he was related to Bruce Dern).

Not really for intellectuals, but instead a mixture of detective story, softcore sex and humour (the latter being sparsely dosed but nicely done). A lot of girls, but really mainly a vehicle for Athena Massey, whose beautiful body is shown to around 98% on various occasions, and who also has a way with deadpan humour. Anyone who hasn't yet seen it should catch up on this amusing 93 minute-film, which stops (if only just) short of full frontal nudity but was apparently still considered worthy of the US "R"-rating. My DVD had a crystal clear picture with fine colours, which more than made up for the cost-conscious props and locations.

Cindy is tired of being treated like a little girl who needs men to come in and save her. Her brothers and dad were always doing that, so she got out on her own. She allegedly joined the police force, where she continues to be watched over by too-chivalrous men, to her annoyance. And yet, who can blame them? She shows up to "work" dressed like a barmaid at "Hooters", wearing enough to cover and accentuate her breast implants, and not much else.

The male cops on her team don't seem to do much either, though, so maybe you can't blame them for not wanting to rock the boat. They hang around the police station like they are, I dunno, actors whose only job in a softcore movie is pretending to care about the starlet, and are never remotely belieavable as cops. They look like extras from early episodes of "Friends".

Someone is killing prostitutes, so Cindy gets the job of posing as a prossy in a brothel and maybe catching the perp. This idea is idiotic, but a better movie could have gotten away with it without you thinking, for example, if the killer has already struck there, why would they expect him to come back when there must be many other brothels in the city. "Undercover", however, adds extra layers of idiocy: the madam, played by Meg Foster of the strikingly pale blue eyes, doesn't even know that Cindy is a cop. Why, or how, would they keep that a secret from her? It gets better though: Cindy is told by the Keystone Kops back at her station house that all the johns that come to see her have been selected by them so she won't have to actually do anything sexual. Um, that's understandable, but if that's the case, how is she going to catch the killer? Immediately, though, clients start coming to her who haven't been vetted by the kops. I guess it makes sense that they would stuff that up, inneffective as they seem.

One of these clients is a guy who just "likes to watch", by which I mean, he likes to watch TV. Sure, guys pay to watch women have sex. Not so sure one would pay through the neck to watch a porno on TV in the mid-'90s when videotape was in full bloom and so was cable. Why didn't they show him watching some of the softcore action the movie dishes up? That would have been a great opportunity to show Cindy exploring her sexuality - which is basically the movie's reason for existing. The sight of a guy watching TV really isn't that interesting, but in this movie, it is inexplicable.

Did I mention that Jeffrey Dean Morgan has a role? I didn't? Well, that's because he doesn't do much - certainly nothing to make you understand how he went from this to roles in "Supernatural", "The Walking Dead" and "Grey's Anatomy". He's often been compared to Javier Bardem, but here, he looks more like Brad Garrett from "Everybody Loves Raymond".

The movie culminates in perhaps the most unrealistic gunshot I have ever seen in a movie. We have a sound effect, a guy keels over, and it's done. The sound effect seems to come from behind you, not in front on your screen, and there is no attempt to really make you think a gun went off. The guy was apparently shot in the back, so why does he die right away? Why didn't the gunpowder make the room light up? Why doesn't smoke come from the barrel after it was fired? Oh, that's right: because it wasn't fired. The movie doesn't even try to make you think it was.

All this had me wondering if "Undercover" is "The Room" of softcore flicks. I hesitate to label it as such, though, because it's nowhere near as entertaining as that film. It does have the same bizarre "Twilight Zone" feel to it, however, where you wonder if what you're watching is actually meant to be as unconvincing as it is, and you start looking more closely at the actor's faces, expecting them to wink at you and show you, yeah, this isn't really as inept as it seems.

It is a softcore flick, and you might notice I haven't said anything about the sex scenes. That's because there's not much to be said about them. The movie really isn't erotic. The plot could have worked on multiple levels - I'd love to see this idea done by Almodovar, for example. It could have showed a woman cutting loose and discovering what really turns her on, while also being a comment on the way sex workers are treated by the men they encounter and how they are viewed by society at large, represented by the already-paternal police force. But instead it goes for the lowest hanging fruit, and what's worse, it doesn't even get it.

This movie is a very nice Erotic-Thriller. If I had to compare this movie to a more mainstream movie, I'd go with "Scream." A call girl from a high price whorehouse is murdered, and it is up to the tom-boy police woman (Athena Massey) to go undercover as a prostitute to find the killer. At the same time, she sees a "sexy" side to her that she didn't know she had.

Cindy (Athena Massey) does a very good job at making you believe she is an innocent tom-boy at the beginning of the flick, which really makes it hot when you finally see her cut-loose and explore her sexual side.

The main plot is trying to guess who the killer is. It isn't revealed to the viewer until the end of the movie. Unlike the "Scream" series, I think this movie did a better job of "surprising" you with who the killer actually is.

All in all, a well-rounded film. A definite "don't miss" if you're in the mood for some sex, and mystery.

well, gregory dark's movies always have:

• a cute woman as the star - a quiet, violent man as the villain - a nice lesbian scene - a story ´

is he good? let's say that i prefer him to adrian lyne