Blackmail - Blutige Abrechnung

Talk about one of those waste-of-your-time movies. I saw this movie on its cinemax debut and christ! If any movie can manage to put together a poorly written, badly acted, terrible action sequences with a flimsy plot, this could be the shiner. I just wasted almost an hour and a half of my time just to see if this movie ever picks up. Well the worse thing is, I watched it with very little expectation of it. However, they could've done something to make it a bit appealing to the audience.

I came across this movie as an imported VHS tape and because of the interesting cast I had to check it out. It has the look and feel of a classic film noir with a cameo from Mark Ruffalo as a sleazy public defender. Traci Lords is chilling as the crack-addicted gun moll/femme fatale. An undiscovered, low budget gem.

On the surface, it appears to be `just another one of those...,' yet with an open mind and an appreciation of mystery and crime stories (and especially a comprehensive knowledge of semiotics and film theory in general), Blood Money proves to be an intellectual treat.

Unfortunately, a lot of people could not appreciate the subtlety with which Blood Money turns film noir and the classic `crime story' conventions around, while at the same time commenting smugly upon the expectations of the cable-subscriber audience. Shepphird's film is all about inexorability, free will and ultimately, redemption, all cloaked in the guise of a quiet little made-for-tv movie. A post-post-modern `The Killing' with a Corman twist and a cast of zany characters (including ex-porn star Traci Lords, making her non-porn debut here, in a seeming homage to Mati Hari), Blood Money slaps you, then asks you if you like it. It catches you in the nude, and then just just when you think you've got it figured out, it reaches down and pulls out - something you didn't expect.

This mystery-thriller is neither mysterious or thrilling. The story is completely predictable and the characters are underwritten and uninteresting. Much of the acting is wooden, but that is not a surprise given the material with which they had to work. Don't waste your time by watching this film.