Pulsions mortelles

I can't recall if I've ever sat thru such a blatantly dumb tale as what is presented here in 'Body Language' before. When I say dumb I'm talking about the main character. Deeper and deeper into stupidity ... logic long ago out the window. The contrived story is handled poorly and is a lot to choke on. This one belongs in a special category.

Gavin St. Claire (Tom Berenger) is a high priced defense attorney in the midst of his newest case when he gets into a minor car accident with Dora (Heidi Schanz) and is immediately taken with her. Sex, red flags galore and his once intelligent mind evaporates. Juggling his organized crime client, moral obligations and blabbing on to Dora he soon finds himself in a compromising situation with her boyfriend (Robert Patrick). Before you can snap your fingers together, he's planning his murder.

I don't discount that you can find men or stupid situations like this in the real world, but that doesn't make this movie any less silly. He's great at what he does. You think he'd be able to read people. Okay put that aside. He's already got a great career, money, a Porsche. Meeting attractive women probably wouldn't be that hard. Why would he be addicted to a woman he just met? She's a stripper. She's poor. She discloses how she was abused when she was younger and previous men have used her for sex. He should have hit the eject button by now.

I like Tom Berenger and he wasn't immune to popping up in poor pics for a paycheck, but 'Body Language' might be his rock bottom (of what I've seen). Schanz effectively dials it up near the end & Robert Patrick puts in a wasted appearance in a role with no depth. Sit back and enjoy the show as it circles the drain. Any comparisons made to 'Body Heat' are a stretch. Don't even get me started on the ending here. Ugh.

The first film that indicated the downward path Tom Berenger's films were taking. He's been in a lot of TV movies, and they're not all bad, in fact some are excellent (Rough Riders, In the Company of Spies, Johnson County War to name a few) but some are real stinkers like this dud. It's completely unoriginal with practically a see-through "plot" and the intended film-noir feel misses all together.

Nancy Travis, who looked like she was going to have some sort of acting career (quite excellent in 1990's Internal Affairs) gives a rather good performance but in the end she doesn't have all that much to do and can't salvage anything of value. The excellent Tom Berenger looks completely lost here, whether he wasn't all that interested in the project (who could blame him?) or simply was hitting a career low here, is anyone's guess. He's way too good for such a degrading and spineless role. I was always waiting for his character to pull off something unexpected but...nothing. Total bore.

Even down to the fist word in the title, there are many similarities between the two. Body Heat is one of my favorites, so I also enjoyed Body Language although the writing and dialog were certainly not up to the "original". Tom Berenger did a good job, I thought...but a little too smart and slick to be hoodwinked as he was. As a comparison, William Hurt (Body Heat) was able to be convincing as a boob lawyer being manipulated at every turn by a conniving female.