Looker

Nic Cramer's serious neo-noir "Looker" swept Adult industry awards, which for me is often an inverse indicator rather than valid accolade. Problem here (see previous IMDb review for a vox populi sentiment) is the age-old nonsense about Adult Cinema only being about hot sex scenes, so Cramer's attempt to deliver something more is either ridiculed or put on an undeserved pedestal.

I am naturally attracted to Adult films and videos that are an extension of mainstream filmmaking, rather than mere documents of sex workers performing sex for the camera (and horny viewer). Nic passes this low bar by telling a story and encouraging some fine acting, but what he does with this solid foundation is another matter.

Without the crutch of explicit sex, the show falls apart, including many arbitrary and barely related sex scenes and failing to deliver on its mystery/suspense. Vince Vouyer underplays well as a typical self-divided film noir hero, committed to solving his late cop dad's unsolved case of the Femme Fatale murders, dating back to 1954 serial killings, which are recurring in the present day, set in 1997. Cramer's disappointing 2000 sequel belatedly provides a gimmicky "surprise" solution to the case but is even less successful than this first feature in coherent plot and character development.

Shanna McCullough shines in both editions, while lead femme Lauren Montgomery, well-remembered from her career peak role in the first few episodes of Toni English's classic miniseries "Naked Hollywood four years later, is uber sexy and physically impressive, towering at least a head taller over leading man Voyeur in her high heels.

Cramer's career is checkered, with many a pretentious loser such as the potentially good "A Clockwork Orgy", dreadful "Kiss of the Black Widow" and tons of filler for Private Media. His main contribution here, other than overly moody lighting, and an end credits crawl of seemingly 50-plus crew members, is to cast top Euro talent like Silvia Saint and Erica Bella, both of whom have show-stopping XXX scenes.

You know, we've all made fun of the plot, or lack there of in porn. It's just the stuph that gives you a rest between masturbating or allows porn stars to call themselves actresses. Now I won't go so far as to say the acting and storyline of Looker is that amazing but whoever had the concept for this one got something right. Looker takes the classic traditions of film noir and becomes what noir always pretended it wanted to be. Now this may sound like a highhanded look at this movie but this film's true value is in its quirky multi-layered look at more traditional film styles. Course it doesn't hurt that Lauren Montgomery and Silvia Saint have a couple incredibly hot scenes.