Wetwork

Storyline porn, apart from the dreadful "parodies", is so endangered a species that "Wetwork" received raves from industry types just by merely trying to tell a story. Unfortunately, it has a lousy script, lackluster direction by Eli Cross/Bryn Pryor, and an unearned self-importance I found particularly annoying.

The genre here reached its apotheosis in the '70s with the unheralded thrillers by Michael Winner, a misunderstood British filmmaker of unique talent. I've seen almost all his films, including the rarities, and it is "reductio ad absurdum" exercises -"Scorpio" with Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster being the best - that are the most interesting, not the several hits like "Death Wish".

These sleek thrillers, benefiting from Winner's editing-in-the-camera approach (he envisioned the shots he'll need and tried to shoot just what was necessary, minimizing coverage), present a cast of characters that dwindles down towards one (or none) surviving at the end of various cat & mouse sequences. Jean-Pierre Melville is the most lauded practitioner in this neo-noir genre, but I went to all of Winner's films in the chronological order that they were released throughout the '70s and '80s, catching up on his '60s classics like "The Girl Getters" and "I'll Never Forget What's 'Is Name" at my leisure.

Here comes Cross/Pryor and we have Steven St. Croix and a miscast Penny Pax as dueling hit-persons. St. Croix underplays, which is admirable, but the sketchy role is one of his least interesting -probably over a hundred more noteworthy ones than this "award-winning" turn. Pax is sexy as usual (though unrecognizable in her photo shopped DVD cover photo), but hardly with enough mileage to compete in the world-weary game St. Croix is playing. The most similar recent mainstream film to this genre is George Clooney's "The American", a role and performance that reminded me directly of Winner's 2nd favorite actor (after Oliver Reed): Charles Bronson.

The story clunks along with low-impact killings, perhaps a self-censorship as XXX pornographers like to list "non-violent" entertainment on their releases even if rough trade BDSM is the subject matter, out of fear of censorship. Unlike the '70s, sex and violence no longer mix in porn.

What passes for action is some martial arts footage courtesy of stunt coordinator and nominal bad guy hit man Derrick Pierce, which rates about two rungs below Don the Dragon Wilson on the action scale -closer to Grade Z than the attempted B-grade. Not coincidentally, Pierce's twin characters are known collectively as The Dragon.

Hokey ending seals the deal on Cross/Pryor's ineptness, as if he had never seen a quality action movie by Don Siegel, Winner or even Walter Hill (clearly he's watched Hill but learned nothing). I would invoke Mike Hodges' classic "Get Carter" (my favorite '70s film at the time of release) and its brilliant ending, but this programmer is way out of that league.

One bright spot was casting Claire Robbins, an actress I've enjoyed since she was a teen (in an early British "Young Harlots" feature) to her re-emergence as character actress. But her being abruptly written out of Cross/Pryor/"Mark Logan"'s clunky script is terrible and so arbitrary that I gave up on the feature amounting to anything before the half way mark.

Its ultimate failure underscores a far bigger question. Is it better to have a poorly written and/or poorly executed Story feature in XXX or does wall-to-wall sex of an arousing nature serve the viewer better? Almost everyone would vote for gonzo in such a match-up, even a narrative hold-out like myself, but apparently under the force of Gresham's Law that's about all the choice we can expect in future. The critics and industry bodies' embracing of "parodies" merely proves that point, when they should have been urging a boycott to nip that pernicious trend in the bud.

NOTE: "Wetwork" was shot back to back with an excellent noir "Family Secrets" using the same cast but the latter was written and directed by actress Kimberly Kane (with Cross/Pryor as her cameraman). It's terrific and an hour shorter than this stinker.