Undercover Heat

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.

No pun intended - obviously the title is referring to a cop trying to find stuff out about a serial killer. For that she only has to pretend to be a high class ... prostitute I think is the correct word for it. A woman of different pleasures. Ah well someone has to do it, right? And why not take one of the hottest woman out there? Athena and her body are mind blowing. I assume depending on your first time watch, she'll do more than just that to your body.

All innuendo and jokes aside, the movie tries to be classy when it comes to its depiction of erotic, while still showing off as much of her body (and some other women obviously) ... there is more music laid over it and less moaning, if that plays a particular role for you. But the movie also has Meg Foster and Jeffrey Dean Morgan ... I had no idea who they were when I watched it back in the day. Though I assume Dean Morgan wasn't too big of a star back then (certainly not as much as he is nowadays).

The softcore approach of it has to be something you like, if you are into women that do have some nice ... chest area you will be more than satisfied too. Oh and of course there is the story - I mean the culprit ... and the crimes. Well you need some excuse for the characters to be doing stuff - have fun in guessing who is who - acting wise this really won't have any satisfactory ... highlights if you forgive my pun.

A female cop goes undercover in a high price whorehouse to find a murderer and discovers she likes the assignment more than she should.

Good for her. This movie is an abomination. This is zero acting ability, zero story, the writing is horrendous and it appears they just stuck a camera on the ground and filmed because there is no direction either.

And the sound is out of sync by a second which makes the entire affair annoying.

I cannot tell you enough to stay away from this horrible horrible movie! There is not one redeeming aspect to it. Not one.

You need three things to have a good B-Movie. 1, you need nudity. Undercover Heat has a lot of it. 2, you need a face passed story without a lot of dialogue and hard to follow plots. Undercover Heat is far from confusing. And 3, a strong leading actress that can act. Athena Massey not only carried this film that made her into a sex image, but she made her role as the "Tom Boy" cop believable.

A wonderful supporting cast that doesn't take away from the film. Athena is amazing to watch on screen. That reason alone makes you want to rent this one over and over again.

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).