Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss

If you've never heard of Heidi Fleiss, the enterprising young woman who went from adolescent party girl to high profile prostitute and became Tinseltown's richest and most famous madame within the span of just a few years, this fast paced made for television drama will fill you in on all the sordid details. What it won't do is help you understand people like Fleiss or care in the least abut her or any of her associates. Norman Snider's script offers few insights into the madame's motivations, though to his credit, he wisely avoids the heavy handed moralizing I expected. Director Charles McDougall's constantly moving camera and slick, quick cuts make the movie look like a 90 minute music video. The combined result is a constantly interesting but rarely emotionally engaging tour through Fleiss's world of seduction and betrayal. The film often seems like little more than an excuse to show sexy babes modeling skimpy lingerie, lounging around the pool in their bikinis, or servicing clients in carefully edited softcore sex scenes. It's all entertaining fluff, but I found myself wishing for a bit more substance underneath all the superficial gloss.

The film's biggest problem can be summed up best in just three words: Jamie-Lynn DiScala. This young actress seems competent enough playing the pampered daughter of a mob boss on THE SOPRANOS, but then I doubt that role would be much of a stretch for a lady who was apparently so obsessed with her own appearance she suffered from a type of bulimia for years. To the best of my knowledge, the Fleiss character is DiScala's first serious adult role and I'm sorry to say she doesn't exactly rise to the challenge. Her idea of portraying a confident, calculating woman is to parade through the film wearing the same vapid smirk on her face in practically every single scene. Her performance is so staggeringly unconvincing it drags down the whole production to the dramatic level of a sixth grade classroom play. In an interview in TV GUIDE, DiScala herself openly admits she wasn't able to relate to the Fleiss character. She goes on to say she discussed the film's sexual content with the director and told him `I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this.' She also divulges that during one of the sex scenes, she broke into tears and had to be replaced by a body double, even though no on-screen nudity was required. These confessions are very sweet and precious, but they do beg the obvious question: why would she accept the leading role in a film about a prostitute if she was so nervous about doing erotic scenes? Did she even bother reading the script before signing the contract?

DiScala claims she trimmed down by 15 pounds for the part, an admittedly serious health risk for a former bulimic. But considering how awkward she looks throughout this movie, her torturous physical preparation for the role only reveals how utterly warped her priorities are as an actress. My advice to Ms. DiScala is skip the dieting in the future and instead concentrate on some acting method classes. Or better yet, stick to playing pouty adolescent princesses and leave the serious adult roles for real actresses.

In a way, though, I suppose DiScala's presence in this film is ultimately appropriate. Both she and the movie as a whole look extremely sexy but fail to display one iota of depth.

Prostitution shouldn't be a criminal offense punishable by law. It should be considered unethical and people could be tarnished with the black brush of shame, shunned by society, but keep the police out of it. Indeed, let them catch real criminals. For it is even more unethical for the police to get involved in a matter that is simply people, adults, having consensual sex.

(I think this is my wisest review of the lot, but of course nobody's going to pay heed)

Make no mistake, this movie is a goodie. There are four, five bad video edits, you know, the way two scenes are linked together, I see bothersome stripes, beats me how they let that through, possibly hurried work to beat a deadline. But as a product, it has the kind of shine I welcome into my pretty-girls-on-DVD- collection. As for the story, it has to keep to the constraints of being a biopic, this actually happened, nothing is added. The real problem lies in identities that had to be protected just in case of nasty lawsuits. So, some names are very superficially mentioned, but a tell-all this of course ain't. Maybe in a few decades?

There are some disparaging comments made in the reviews, but Jamie-Lynn gives an excellent performance as Heidi Fleiss. Okay, she didn't want to do the nude scenes, but clever (if altogether obvious) editing got past that problem. The complaints about her smirk sounds laden with envy, lots of haters out there who can't stand to look at a pretty girl, and now they're blurring make-believe with reality, and dumping their frustrations on an innocent actress who happens to be playing the part of a prostitute. The sarcasm, the grin, that was her take on Heidi Fleiss, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

She's unforgettable in that bit where she, the Jewess, is offered to an Arab, and absolutely beautiful in that scene where she is lying on the yacht, with old Ivan massaging her back, oh that graceful throat. Not forgetting that plethora of scantily-clad maidens, lazing by the swimming pool, or diving in like graceful dollphins (get it?)...

Movie also very clearly shows just how uncool drug usage is. Red noses anybody?

For starters, a movie like this should have been produced to air on cable. That way, sex scenes, foul language and nudity could have been used to save this film. How can you tell a story about prostitution and drugs in LA with PG rated material? Somehow, the network showed some new wave style of nudity that showed very little with fast paced editing and dissolves. It was nice to see Ms. Jaime-Lynn in a role like this, I only wish she had more to work with. Still, the casting for this film was terrible. The Casting Director should be questioned by a congressional panel on why the actors in this movie were terrible. On a serious note, I feel bad that Jaime-Lynn did not hit a home run with this movie. From here, she has to prove herself with some gritty independent features to make herself stand out among the other mediocre actors of her generation.

Wild child Heidi Fleiss goes from party girl to queen of Hollywood commercial sex - but the careless house-of-cards soon starts to wobble. Based on an over-reported true story.

Money. Sex. Power. Like cherries on a one armed bandit when they line up you should give a decent pay-out. Here, however, they barely give out a profit.

For a start sex on the mainstream screen is all about foreplay, tease and aftermath rather than the act. The power soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty used sex with far more effect than these producers because they knew the audience could fill in the blank between the bedroom door and next morning themselves. Here we are forced to watch a coupling only being performed for financial gain. There is no before and no after. Nothing has changed. We learn nothing. Does the fact that big money is being exchanged add anything or change anything? Is it any more dramatic (or different) from what goes on in a motel room on the wrong side of town?

Jamie-Lynn Sigler was good (as the questioning daughter) in the Sopranos, but that was an undemanding role. Here she plays a complex women who is supposed to be smart and yet at the same time very dumb. Well dumb if not going to jail is one of your high priorities in life. She also mixed selling drugs with selling sex - one of the golden no-no's. She all but painted a cross on her forehead. Add her refusal to pay bribes/inform to the police and you have a perfect "how not to do it."

Nick Bloomfield's documentary was far more interesting as it played her life as unscripted comedy and tragedy. A bizarre version of the American dream where being famous and being infamous are pretty much the same. I am all for the legalisation of prostitution, but if these are the people that are going to benefit then maybe things are not so bad as they are...

Meadow is great. great acting. good story. enjoyable.