Love Crimes

Right from the opening credits and the full-blown saxophone score accompanying them, you know what you're in for: a typical erotic thriller of the early 1990's - the most prolific period of the genre. It does stand a little above the crowd because of the ambiguous "villain" - is he indeed a villain or is he really just exposing and satisfying the hidden desires of these (admittedly gullible) women for mutual gain? And the fact that the film was directed by a woman and co-written by another adds an extra layer: are Lizzie Borden and Laurie Frank trying to tell us something about their own secret fantasies? Despite all that, "Love Crimes" never raises the temperature high enough, probably because of the two leads: Patrick Bergin is miscast as a smooth charmer (especially after just coming off "Sleeping With The Enemy" where he played Julia Roberts' abusive husband), and Sean Young is wooden - which actually fits her character at the start. The problem is that she stays wooden even later when she shouldn't be (she is also a little too skinny for my tastes in this one). ** out of 4.

Atlanta D.A. Dana Greenway (Sean Young) takes risks in a sting putting her investigator Hannah on the line. Colleen Dells comes to her complaining about David Hanover (Patrick Bergin). He pretends to be a well-known famous photographer and scared her into posing nude even having sex. A second victim comes with a similar story except this time he took her car. Dana's boyfriend/superior Stanton Gray suggests perversity could be more conviction worthy than the actual crime. With no one willing to file charges, Dana tracks down Hanover in Savannah putting herself in the position of his next victim.

Sean Young gels back her hair so hard that it looks like it hurts. It's an overly overt visual cue to denote a hard cold female lawyer. This movie is caught between a salacious sexploitation B-movie and a serious take on the reality of rape. It makes this very awkward and unappealing. It tries to go into some dark murky psychological space but it feels more like a melodrama. I don't know what exactly her plan was going to his place. It seems very close to entrapment. It would have worked so much better if he could pick her up from the bar or the photo lab. The movie feels awkward in many places. Following Hannah tracking down Dana is not compelling. The movie should have ended after Dana gets out of imprisonment. The drama can't go any higher and the last section runs too long. Director Lizzie Borden has made mostly erotic fiction and this doesn't have the best production value.

District attorney Sean Young goes undercover to catch a crazed maniac (Patrick Bergin) who sexually humiliates and terrorizes women, fooling them by posing as a photographer. Naturally Young was a victim of child abuse herself and thus she becomes sucked in by Bergin's sick actions. Strangely there might actually be an attraction between the two leads. Now how sick could that possibly be? Soft-core trite the whole way here as director Lizzie Borden (who had minimal success with sexually-motivated productions and premium television programming in the mid-1990s) would rather get her performers naked and in compromising positions than tell a cohesive tale. Bergin and Young, two people that have never had any business in front of a camera, are not good enough players to give "Love Crimes" any substantiated success. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

Lizzie Borden, if that is her real name, attempts to direct a passionate, sexual thriller about seduction and love. Besides moments of nudity and sexual overtones, the movie falls flat on its face. Sean Young attracts an audience to see this mild excuse for a thriller. A low budget, none-the-less, Love Crimes is a story of passion, without the passion. While Sean Young is still learning how to act and the carry a film, Patrick Bergin, the evil husband from Sleeping with the Enemy, is five times a better actor than Young. However, it is Young who draws the audience to see her naked. Although she is not a super model or a top ten actress, Sean Young represents the average, everyday woman with the average figure. It is that audience, viewer make up, that is attracted to these movies. For that reason, Love Crimes has an audience but not much of a fan base.

I read somewhere that when director Lizzie handed in this film, the producers so objected to her ending that they sniped it before release. Granted, it concludes abruptly, but the reason we're left hanging is far deeper than that. Sean Young is so puckered, she barely squeaks any personality into the character. We are left with puzzling, blue-tinted flashbacks of a sexually traumatic event, that, possibly ends in a death, I'm not sure. There's a story here--especially in the photographer/seducer--it just wasn't filmed.

But bad writing and acting are only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. Titanic is overall cinematic style. I'm not sure if Lizzie was going for a gritty, quasi-documentary look, but the over-lighting and shoulder-high camera angle make the film look just amateurish. Even the dark scenes at the cabin incorporate the light source in the frame, effectively ruining any atmospheric interiors. Thematically, this is about assigning blame when things go sexually awry--a very interesting and exciting subject. Fortunately, the script doesn't accept the "fry 'em" attitude of date rape that is currently correct. Unfortunately, the visual argument is hopelessly bogged down in misdirection.

At best, it's a hung jury.