Defenseless

Police try to solve the murder of a businessman. Unknown to them, the man's attorney is implicated and, of course, she wants to keep her involvement secret. This leads to the wrong person being charged, causing the lawyer to go looking for the real culprit. Good mystery with lots of action and tense drama.

I watched this movie not expecting very much, but was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Hershey gives her usual competent performance, as a successful lawyer called to defend an old school friend accused of murdering her husband. The plot although very contrived was quite clever with several twists. Overall I thought the film well directed and worth a watch.

**SPOILERS** Extremely complicated and convoluted murder drama that keeps getting more and more confusing as it moves along. Barbara Hershey is an overly hysterical defense attorney Thelma T.K Knudsen Katwuller,which shows you never to trust anyone with more then two names,involved in the murder of her lover Steven Seldes, J.T. Walsh, but first ends up defending the deceased wife Ellie, Mary Beth Hunt, a long time and collage friend of T.K.

T.K is actually Steven's attorney in a case where a piece of property that he owns that's involved in producing kiddie porn flicks. The father of a 14 year old girl Cindy (Christine Elise) Sherman Bodeck, George P. Wilber, has been driven into a psychotic fit on finding out about his daughter being in porno flicks, that was filmed at a warehouse that Steven owns. Bodek is involved in a number of brutal beating of the film company's employees,who were involved with his daughter. One of Bodeck's victims is one of Cindy's adult co-star someone named Weinstein, Jay O. Sanders, who end's up hospitalized with his most precious and useful possession, that he needs to be a success with women in and out of the porno business, badly damaged.

T.K herself has been having an affair with the ruggedly handsome Steven not knowing that he's married to Ellie. Later going to see him about business at his office T.K finds a stack of porno magazines hidden in his, Stevens, drawer she goes bananas. T.K attacks the startled Steven and slashes him with a envelope knife breaking his nose and then taking off into the night, leaving him badly bleeding and in a somewhat state of shock. Later when she recovered, and realizing that she left her car keys in Steven's office, T.K goes back only to find Steven slumped in the mens bathroom stall dead with 18 stab wounds on his face and chest.

It turns out that all the evidence in Steven's murder points to his wife, not T.K, and she's soon arrested for his murder which makes you wonder what you've been seeing! It's not until very late in the movie that all the facts are somehow fit together. This after a number of major suspects in Stevens' death, besides T.K, are eliminated one way or another as suspects.

The movie then starts to focuses in on Steven's strange and kinky sex life mostly with young under-aged girls that he gleefully video taped that included his 15 year-old daughter Jenna, Kellie Overby. It becomes evident that Jenna's mother, and Steven's wife, Ellie had a good reason to do in the no good lousy pervert. All this lead to her then being found innocent in his murder by a court of law which made the the reason for her being AGAIN arrested, which Ellie later was, and tried for his murder a moot point; one can't be tried twice for the same crime!

There's also in the movie Det. Beutel, Sam Shepard, the cool as a cucumber cop who's so detached from the movie that he seems to be totally unaware of what's happening. Even after he's almost killed by a crazed and out of control Sherman Bodeck who end's up jumping to his death down an elevator shaft.

The evidence, in the movie, connecting the killer to his victim was very hard to swallow but that being the only reason for his death you had to accept it no matter how illogical it was! In fact it was that very same evidence of motive and difference in size between the killer and victim that found the person on trial for Steven's murder innocent! Which in the end was what proved him, or her, to be guilty! Go and figure that one out.

This is not a bad little thriller complete with spooky garages and a scary fall down the elevator shaft scene although it's sometimes hard to figure out just who is who. The plot has many murky twists and turns (although I imagine the continuity suffered in being cut for television.) Nor do I understand why our lawyer/lover drives a beat up Karmann-Ghia. But this is obviously one of those films that took handouts from big tobacco. Everybody smokes everywhere. The good guys smoke. The bad guys smoke. The good guys who turn out to be bad guys smoke. The bad guys who turn out to be good guys smoke. The cops smoke. I'm surprised the judge and the jury didn't light up. The whole damn film is one big choking cloud of smelly blue smoke. Because of that I knocked my rating down two points.

The stage curtains open ...

"Defenseless" is typical of early 90's suspense/thriller films which were fairly formulaic with similar piano-tickling soundtracks and plot lines. This movie, starring Barbara Hershey in the lead role, was one of the better ones with solid performances and a story that will keep you invested.

Back in 1991, when this was released, it contained an additional 12 minutes that were crucial to the plot. Today, the DVD release is only 92 minutes as opposed to the original 104 minutes. Unfortunately, there is no way I can recommend you to watch the original version, unless you still have the first VHS copy of the movie and a VCR to watch it on (as I do). There is no uncut version available today on DVD or BluRay. So, if you do watch this movie, keep in mind that you are watching a much watered down version of it, feeling more like a made-for-tv effort, and it won't be that good.

However, if you can see the original uncut version, then I think you would like it - if you are a fan of the suspense/thriller genre of film. The story was credible and the acting good, with a few over-the-top moments from Hershey, but nothing overly distracting or really worth mentioning.

I enjoyed this movie and would recommend it without hesitation. Solid in all areas, a film worth watching and even owning. The uncut/original version that is.