Total Exposure

Described as an exploitation movie that turned out surprisingly well. That about sums it up. I remember some scenes vividly, but alas! this is yet another impossible title to find on DVD. What with the great poster it had (for its South African release anyway) featuring a bikini girl (Deborah Driggs?) clearly showing that there is fun to be expected, this could have been a very popular release in video shops just like it was years before in the bad old VHS days. Once again, I solemnly promise to write a real review if I could see this one ever again, but my chances for that seem to be less than zero. Which is a pity, because this title had a whole lot going for it.

When a film is produced with virtually no apparent attempt being made to achieve something original within its footage, one often tends to look for creative fillips here or there from the direction, screenplay, dialogue or acting, but here such are few and far between. During this by the numbers work, a former policeman who had been "asked to resign" (tacitly due to his incorruptibility), is now the wonted private eye, in this case hired by a fashion photographer seeking a way out of a knotty predicament. The plight that the photographer, Andi Robinson (Season Hubley), must attempt to avoid is her pending arrest for the murder of one of her models, Kathy (Deborah Driggs), who smuggled a kilo of cocaine into the United States from Mexico, utilizing Andi's luggage following a photo session at Acapulco, and because Andi has a felony record involving cocaine she is the primary suspect for the homicide, therefore depending upon P.I. Dave Murphy (Michael Nouri) to rescue her from a distressful position. Worsening her situation is Kathy's partner in crime, Zach, who believes that Andi is yet in possession of the smuggled drug and will stop at nothing to regain it, all this while the district attorney responsible for Murphy's forced resignation (and who holds mayoral ambition), is being blackmailed by Zach for photographed sexual improprieties with no other than the late Kathy, all crammed into a crowded scenario. Hubley performs earnestly while Nouri plays well in spite of his cliched role, occasionally delivering a trenchant bit of dialogue, and a pair of supporting players deserve attention: Martina Castle as another ill-starred model and Dean Devlin who creates his wry role as an overqualified manager of an establishment purveying pornographic items. A good portion of the film is spent in arresting the action so that young women in bikinis or less may pose and gambol about, but during those times when cinematographer Kent Wakeford is allowed to do so, he devises interesting compositions, although there is little else that is fresh in this limply directed and poorly scored routine crime entry.

Based upon the early 90's penchant for "erotic-thrillers", this movie was not so bad, considering some of the other low-budget tripe during that period. Pretty good production values for a low-budget film, boats, helicopters, cars, mansions in Malibu, expensive cars. This was a period where content was determined by distributors and the demands for crime and sexuality were constantly being requested. Also this was the period where there were two lists of words, and combining two words led to the title choice. The oddity of needing a combining two disparate words into the semblance of a title was quite funny and led to a lot of odd combinations, (and films). If you didn't work in films during this period, you'd never understand.

Good acting from Hubley and Nouri, a few interesting characters and the tribute to "Scarface" with the agent in the bathtub scene was rather funny. I especially like the yacht scenes, even though they had to be peppered with girls in bikinis.