Mrs. Jones

Veteran Adult Roy Karch shows his prowess with this little film for "Wicked", working from his own satisfying script that has contract star Shayla LaVeaux playing a strong-willed and capable woman -perhaps not a role model but a refreshing departure from porn heroines.

She runs a bar that she took over after divorcing her husband, and is still on very good (including sexual) terms with the friend and lawyer Joel Lawrence who handled her settlement.

Fly in the ointment is gigolo Nick Manning, quite effective as the handsome but untrustworthy layabout who picks up Shayla at her bar and has a torrid affair with her. He and his accomplices, Barrett Blade and latter's main squeeze Ava Vincent, plot to rob Shayla blind but she outsmarts them easily.

Smoothly acted by LaVeaux and effortlessly directed by Karch, the simple tale is remarkably pleasant to watch, and avoids the violence or overheated dramatics one would expect from such a plot line. Joelean and Venus round out the cast of femme humpers, latter delivering her patented anal sex with Steve Hatcher -who portrays Shayla's loyal bartender.

It emerges overall as an example of what I term Lifestyle Porn, showing a well-to-do class of folk living hedonistically by their own rules, for the delectation and perhaps envy of the voyeuristic video audience. This is best exemplified in the feature's opening cocktail party, which includes well-chosen extras and exudes success and contentedness all around.