An overdone porn feature by Gary Graver, also released with the XXX content removed by Troma, "Tight Spot" is not quite the remake of Orson Welles' "Mr. Arkadin" as IMDb lists, but clearly Graver having worked quite often with Welles felt free to steal basic elements of the great man's work. Running well over two hours long, it's a tough slog to watch and demonstrates the pitfalls of aspiring to making a mainstream movie chock full of hardcore porn content.
Unusual opening has tons of voice-over trying to set up an air of mystery, and then an oddball ski chase out of a no-budget Bond movie ripoff, very awkwardly drawing the viewer into an expose of some fictional billionaire "man of mystery", compared in the lousy dialogue to Gatsby and Howard Hughes.
Finding the dying skier are Tony Martino (the movie's star and narrator) and stripper Farrah in a very unusual variation on "meet-cute". They team up, following the dying man's words involving a mysterious billionaire named Nazarin, who could be ripe for being blackmailed. Both Tony and Farrah decide to investigate him and the poorly structured movie starts off with two Tony/Farrah sex scenes leading off a couple of hours of wandering around as Tony unravels the boring mystery in time for a final sex scene and a violent conclusion.
It's quite dreary, and the print I watched ran two hours and 15 minutes long, evidently a work print, since there was no sound in several places -unfinished. The director's voice is heard loudly yelling instructions during several sex scenes, another indicator that this was not the final edit with post-production incomplete.
Mike Horner is unusually subdued as Nazarin, a man supposedly wanting to find out about his past (claiming amnesia a decade back) or that could just be another lie. Shanna McCullough is lovely as always as his wife getting a divorce, Nikki Sinn pops up as another mysterious character as his wealthy ex-wife, now hanging out with shady John Decker, and Fallon & Missy are thrown into the stew in a threesome with Missy's real-life partner Mickey G. Also in the mix is sexy Gabriella Gotti (stage name suitable for a mafia wife) running a porno shop who Tony bangs on the premises.
Graver photographs tons of location shots that are meant to imply a super-production but merely add to the padding. Instead of a lost classic, it's a junker, the sort of errant movie that Troma's honcho Lloyd Kaufman liked to purchase, mutilate and sell to a gullible "so bad it's good" fan base for schlock.
