I Like to Play Games

Suzanne Braunhill (Lisa Boyle) is a successful executive at an ad

firm who has just been transferred from New York to Los Angeles.

Even though her reputation as a witch (possible spelling error)

precedes her, Michael Morgan (Ken Steadman) who works at the

same firm in LA thinks he can play her games with her. He has

just split with his girlfriend Melody (Pamela Dickerson) who just

wasn't exciting enough for him. The game is on!

Suzanne's games put Michael in awkward situations that threaten

his career, but he persists in playing the games against the best

advice of his friend Nick Kelso (James DiZazzo), who seems to

have played before. How the last game is won may surprise the

viewers.

The movie, though negative and somewhat depressing at times,

is generally well done for one of its genre. Monique Noel

(Playboy's POM, May, 1989) plays a small part as a member of the

office team. She has some cute body language responses to

Michael's frenetic orders as he tries to meet deadlines.

Now, this is how you make a soft-core sex movie! Mostly, these types of films fail because they have either too much tedious plot or too little erotic action. I Like to Play Games gets the balance spot on in my opinion. The story-line is very simple but it never out-stays its welcome. It essentially is used simply as a means of stringing along one erotic encounter after another. There are two things very good about this. One, there are lots of these scenes and little time wasted in between. And secondly this movie is a Lisa Boyle vehicle. She is a pretty stunningly sexy woman and is naked many, many times in this. She plays a mysterious, highly sexed femme fatale who plays dangerous games with a lucky victim. The sexual encounters are very varied in content. But the important thing – and it's hardly a given in this type of movie – they are very sexy. There are several great sequences but special mention has to be made for Lisa's leather strap outfit – seeing truly is believing.

This is surely something of a classic of its type. A 90's sexploitation movie with a great leading lady. A film that does exactly what you hope it will. Can't say fairer than that.

The video box looks like just another one of those "erotic" movies but this one actually has a plot, moderately interesting characters, and some humor. It's the story of a guy who gets involved with a woman at work who likes "games." Of course he thinks he's going to be in control, but she's a smart one who gets the best of him time after time. It does get a little too dramatic near the end but on the whole manages to be sexy, fairly entertaining, and not demeaning to women. Worth a second look. What "9 and 1/2 Weeks" should have been.

I Like To Play Games has a claim to fame in that it was one of the handful of the (supposedly) superior titles that brought the straight to video erotic thriller to a wider audience during the 1990s - the other contenders being the trite 'Elkie' aka 'Friend of The Family' (also starring Lisa Boyle), and the absurd 'Playtime' (with Jennifer Burton, who memorably crops up in this one).

I'll leave it to others to debate whether any of this is justified, but the so-called erotic thriller usually generates some fairly jaded comments - as one look at IMDB comments will tell you - but I Like To Play Games does have one or two merits (and as many flaws). Set against these low standards, what does I Like To Play Games have in its favour?

Well, as actors Ken Steadman (who died a year after release) and Lisa Boyle (one of the decade's poster girls) might not be brilliant, but both are definitely attractive, and have a tangible chemistry between them; and if the cinematography will not win any prizes, it is at least competently and efficiently done...for the most part.

This is advantageous (but far from unique) within the narrow millenu of the erotic thriller, but the real story, perhaps, is the unexplored motivations behind the main characters (other than gratification or narcassism) within their increasingly toxic, mutually obsessive, relationship.

None of this puts I Like To Games in the same league as genuine psychological thrillers; as it is, (for those who care) this is an above average T & A flick with some good moments and a few interesting ideas it has neither the ambition or ability to explore.

I'm a big Jennifer Burton fan, and she's in it in a big way (as always), but after seeing the film and thinking about it the next day, I wondered why I sat through the whole ordeal. I saw the French-dubbed, unrated version of "I Like To Play Games", so maybe if I saw it in English, I would have tuned out much quicker.

Lisa Boyle (a nice looking lady, but not a world-beater) and Ken Steadman (complete with a cheesy 1995 haircut) play Suzanne and Michael. Both of them work at some agency. Michael is a guy who obviously played games of dare with Jeff Wise and Angela from Mike Sedan's "Mischievous", but his are all sexually charged. The whole movie is about seeing these two soap-opera rejects ruin their lives just out of boredom. They play ludicrous games of "tease" (well Suzanne does). While it's fun to see the conceited Kung Fu-loving Michael made a fool of over and over again (one scene has him running in the streets naked after she runs away from his pad, complete with a view of his jewels for the ladies), it gets tedious once they start having real "philosophical discussions" and then everything...well let's just say it steals everything from "Mischievous".

All I can say is that even in French-dubbed voices, I couldn't stand either of these two primadonnas. I would have preferred if they settled their petty "love feud" with a duel and two .357 Magnums and gave us more of Miss Burton. Still, I couldn't stay away; I had to see who won this "feud", find out if you "dare".