Prisioneira do Amor

Having Naomi Campbell in a leading role playing a woman held under lock and key by a criminal might be what the filmmakers thought would be every man's dream. Don't get me wrong, Naomi is not a bad choice, but it's clear that the whole movie is a vehicle for showing her perfect looks. What is really disappointing is Eric Thal as the man who struggles with his mobster engagements, desperately trying to balance between his duty for his evil mobster boss (btw. Beau Starr bringing some kind of emotion to the movie) and his love for the woman he should have killed. But none of that is really visible. Eris seems to be the happiest guy of the world just to have scenes with Naomi and getting to kiss her ...

If one likes to watch Naomi Campbell playing a desperate woman using her female powers to survive that movie is worth consideration, but don't expect more than that.

Strange little flick... An attempt at the good bad guy genre, I guess. Like Goodfellas, or Mean Streets, or Fingers, or The Sopranos, or all the urban gansta flicks out these days...

Naomi Campbell was surprisingly good, I thought. Eric Thal seemed to be good, but for me his performance was terribly undercut by his having an uncanny resemblance to Steve Butabi in A Night at the Roxbury, complete with hairstyle and numerous facial expressions. A cinematic genius could probably cut both flicks together to make something comically horrifying. Otherwise, I didn't find any of the other bad guys too compelling, they were just vaguely psychopathic and repellent.

If you like this genre, highly recommend you dig up a copy of 'Fingers', the 1978 film by James Toback with Harvey Keitel. That one's a knockout.

This is a basic little mob picture, not a whole lot of acting or plot going on. Supermodel Naomi Campbell has limited range, sort of like Eliz Barkely, and Eric Thal is adequate. Most of the plot is about Eric keeping her captive against her will so the mob won't kill her ... she witnessed a crime. She doesn't believe she's in danger, and constantly tries to escape. Rather silly. This movie is about the same level as the other B mob movie "Montana", except Kyra Sedgewick does a better job of trying to hold things together in Montana. Not much acting, not much plot, not much action, not really worth any rental bucks. -Bob