BitterSweet

Sam Jensen (Angie Everhart) is a young woman who ends up in a robbery with her boyfriend Jed (Brian Wimmer) where a security guard is shot dead. Sam tries to help the guard but Jed also shoots her and runs off with the loot. Sam does time but does not give Jed up. Four years later Sam is released and with the help of a maverick cop, Joe Massa (James Russo) they pursue Jed and his crime boss Mr Venti (Eric Roberts.)

It is an earnest, unpretentious and entertaining B movie that was straight to video. Everhart is easy on the eye, Wimmer and Roberts both chew the scenery leaving Russo to look moody. Some of the action scenes are ridiculous but it zips along.

I watched Bittersweet a couple years ago on the USA network I believe. It was probably edited, but I liked it - of course I admire the female lead, Angie Everhart a great deal. She has a lot of potential, all she needs is the right material. I view films such as this in a completely different context than I would say, a big budget production.

Bittersweet, as I recall, is the story of Samantha, ( Everhart ) a young woman on a mission to exact revenge against the boyfriend who shot her, and then left her for dead during a burglary escape. She was carrying his child at the time, and being left at the scene, she took the rap and went to prison.

After Samantha's release from Prison a few years later, she embarks on a quest to kill a cast of people, who she feels were responsible for her setup. Along the way, she poses as another woman, and then gets a fashion makeover. Probably because she was in prison for so long, but more likely as an excuse to show Angie Everhart in all her model glory.

She also meets up with a down and out cop who has trouble keeping a handle on her bad ways, as she slowly but surely exterminates everyone on her list. Again, not a realistic premise, but I've always liked low budget films, so I found it entertaining. Though, in all of the action, the vendetta against her former boyfriend seems almost a side show, but there are plenty of other characters getting their just deserts, so no big deal. Bittersweet also features Eric Roberts as Mr. Venti, a stereotyped crime boss.

As far as cable ready B-movies go, I give it a 7.

Just when it seemed safe to turn on premium channels without fear of suffering another copy of a rendition of a portrait of a shadow of a reinterpretation of Tarantino's Tough-Talk-with-Gunfire-Punctuation formula, along comes the functionally worthless BITTERSWEET to waste the airwaves. Everhart needlessly exerts herself in the role of a small-time criminal(?) who serves time and gets paroled with revenge on her mind. Eric Roberts shows up for another paycheck. James Russo (EXTREMES) chews more scenery. After much soap-quality melodrama with folks screaming at one another how much they care (the kind of scenes aspiring actors love because they wrongly think that shows off their Acting skills), everything fizzles into a routine shoot-out in Roberts' house replete with gratuitous slow-motion and people firing one pistol in each hand (no wonder they cannot hit anything at which they aim!). The saving grace is Everhart's mighty effort to abandon her glamorous image and deliver some genuinely astonishing Natural Acting -- the subtle unforced kind missing throughout the rest of the actors' performances. Minus make-up, her red hair muted, her delivery fresh, she comes through the only winner in this instantly forgettable waste of celluloid.

I like Angie Everhart, in fact I'd go as far as to say I'm a fan of hers. Despite however having all the tools she had a very underwhelming career, but at least she looked fantastic doing it. The pinnacle in this guys opinion being the Tales From The Crypt movie Bordello Of Blood (1996).

Here she plays the lead (Which was quite a rarity), a woman betrayed by her boyfriend and left for dead. After a prison sentence (She was also framed) she is gunning for revenge and it turns out Eric Roberts is her ex's mafia-esque boss.

The whole thing is very cliched, you'll have seen it all before and done considerably better. It does however have its moments and isn't entirely devoid of entertainment.

Everhart's performance varies from quite good down to dire, the girl is so damn inconsistent that at times she makes Megan Fox look Oscar worthy.

Despite this Bittersweet crosses the t's and dot's the i's in the right places so is a competent enough 97 minutes.

The Good:

Angie Everhart (Fine I'm bias)

The Bad:

High mediocre for the most part

Makeover scene was astoundingly dumb

Eric Roberts hair at the end, what the actual fudge?

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Angie Everhart could have made a brilliant action heroine

In every movie starring Eric Roberts he simply plays Eric Roberts

Great eye-candy as always, Angie Everhart also gives a convincing, tough performance in "Bittersweet" as a woman with an one-track mind: she was shot, framed for armed robbery and imprisoned for 4 years, now she's out for revenge on the man responsible, her sleazy ex-boyfriend, but to get to him she'll have to shoot her way through the criminal organization he now works for. Angie looks great with a gun (or two), and sports a fit physique. Her character is not entirely sympathetic, nor was it meant to be; even though she shows a more human side in a couple of scenes, Everhart doesn't soften her. James Russo is also good as the cop with the tragic past who becomes her only ally; Eric Roberts is less impressive as the crime boss, maybe because he has played this same role a few too many times. The film also cannot escape the cliché of the bad guys who are lousy shots and can't hit the heroes even when they're standing up with no cover, but we see that all the time in more expensive action movies as well, so it's easier to overlook it in a B-movie like this. And "Bittersweet" is a well-made B-movie. **1/2 out of 4.