I'm an unlikely candidate to complain about Adult Cinema with too much story, but "The Final Taboo" as scripted by Michelle Stevens" overloads the viewer with heavy-going mockery of those easy targets, the self- centered jerks on TV who sell religion and flaunt their profligate life- styles. Thirty years later it is hard to watch, since the sex scenes take second or third fiddle.
Not about incest or any other sexual taboo, I suppose the title refers to religion as some sort of Third Rail of subject matter. But not since the '70s has the subject of bible-thumpers and their peccadillos been so thoroughly covered as here.
It boils down to warring televangelists, out to destroy the other guys, as well as the debunkers of their profession. Because of his charisma and star power we're supposed to root for John Leslie, but he's just as corrupt as the other guys, like Field Marshal Bradley, Robert Bullock and in a non-sex version Howard Darkley.
Starry cast also includes the all-time greatest Veronica Hart in a NonSex role as the shrewdest of the criminals on display, while Ona Zee and Shanna McCullough also turn in solid performances. Even Jack Baker, in one of his stereotypical shuckin' roles, is thrown in for comic relief.
But I felt mighty distanced from these cartoonish characters, so exaggerated are their personae and misdeeds. Relevant to today, one can imagine a film about Trump and the absurd miscreants surrounding him in the administration, but even if Oliver Stone were assigned to write and direct the farce he would be hard pressed to keep it from going over the top into pure silliness. Henri Pachard is sincere in his direction, but the resulting black comedy is not among his best.
