Enchanted Arms

With a prodigious clutch of girl power behind it (greats Skye Blue, Melissa Monet and Raven Touchstone as the creatives), I was looking forward to "Enchanted Arms" as a moving story of post-war adjustment to life back home. Alas, a modern emphasis on sex scenes over story/characters leaves one unsatisfied.

The obvious precedent for this film is Brad Armstrong's "Coming Home", which won many industry awards but which also left me cold. In both cases one can admire a porn film taking a serious subject seriously, but that is a low bar - one has to elevate the basic soap opera. And of course, there's that Jon Voight/Jane Fonda "Coming Home", that "Enchanted Arms" unfortunately copies.

So we have our hero Chad White in a wheelchair absorbed in self-pity until the care and love of a good woman, his therapist Brett Rossi, brings him out of his funk (and out of the chair) in time for a cornball Hollywood ending.

Corollary stories get short shrift: a soldier who served below Chad, Donnie Rock and his voluptuous lady Jessa Rhodes; and another handsome but irrelevant couple: Aaliyah Love and Van Wylde.

Making a good impression with me is a newcomer, formerly toiling in the world of fetish, Astrid Star, cast as Chad's lovely (and bosomy) ex-wife.

Despite Brett Rossi's empathetic portrayal, this soap never quite floats.