ridiculous rating

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The only possible reasons to watch this is if a) you are a Brigitte Nielsen completist; or b) you have a morbid desire to see the late Dana Plato's breasts (my reason was the latter, but I've already come to terms with my sickness).Bad acting, bad script, bad cinematography, and non-existent production values add up to worthless dreck, even by direct-to-video standards.Danny Fendley, playing a "famous action star" looks about as buff as my very fat beagle. Besides not looking good in the part, he can't act very well. This might have been part of The Method, of course: he became an action star in his own mind and like all action stars, was incapable of delivering lines well.Melissa Moore, who is topless in most of her scenes, looks like a topless action star. Not counting her chest, she's shrill and uninteresting.Dana Plato. Poor Dana Plato. She delivers some emotion (not much) in her readings, but you still wonder what she was doing here. Surely she had to know that even with nudity, this could not be a route back to Hollywood stardom. In retrospect, she only furnishes leering pathos.I don't remember much of Brigitte Nielsen. She was killed off shortly after giving a canned speech to her husband (the "action star").The script does not help this untalented cast. It's silly in terms of its plot, and plodding in its dialog.Even the subtitle, "Murder in Hollywood" is wrong: this was filmed (taped) in Atlanta. If Edward Wood had lived another 20 years, he might have ended up directing this, and probably would have improved it.

The film is about a philandering actor whose affair is made public by a tabloid reporter who illegally videotapes him having sex with his actress co-star. The wife is naturally angry and publicly sues him for divorce. When this wife is brutally killed soon after, they naturally assume that the man did it--he had a motive and had acted very violent since the affair was publicized.The first two minutes reveal that this is some sort of soft-core porno action film--a really, really stupid one! That's because as the film begins a couple is on the run and the man has an arm that is moderately bleeding. So what do they do? She pulls off her blouse and wraps is in her shirt and they then have sex....though somebody is supposedly chasing them! Then, you see a guy with a rifle shoot down a model helicopter! Oooh, I see Oscar! This 'film' stars Dana Plato and Brigitte Nielsen--and it has Oscar written all over it (well, maybe not). It's actually just a crappy film shot with what seems like a home movie camera with nothing to recommend it, though I could see people watching it in the hope of possibly seeing Plato naked! I am sure there are some guys with "Diff'rent Strokes" fetishes out there! But, considering how messed up Plato was at the time and that she died soon after, it's all too creepy for me--especially since Plato looks about 45 even though she was only about 31--she also bears a strong resemblance to Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest". Hearing Plato cursing like a sailor and behaving so rudely is just nasty...and not in a good way!! And, speaking of nasty...Brigitte Nielsen just looks pretty sad...a shadow of her once beautiful self. I never thought I'd feel sorry for this lady, but this film certainly made me feel bad for her.The entire production is shoddy from start to finish. The acting in particular was horrible--very, very amateurish to say the least. You know it's bad when Plato and Nielsen are the best actors in the film!! As for the direction, it's fair to say that if Ed Wood had been alive, he might have been assumed to be the man in charge! So why did I watch this dumb film? Well, I am a bad film fan and have seen most of IMDb's Bottom 100. While this film hasn't made the list (due to having too few reviews for it to qualify), it's score of 1.2 would put it towards the top--a distinction it would truly deserve.

I've watched Danny Fendley in probably 10 or more films and he can do a really good job IF he is interested in the part. He obviously wasn't to thrilled with this one. You can watch his work and tell if he likes the script. He can be a very high caliber, talented actor but he basically just went through the motions on this one. There was a nice chemistry between Fendley and Brigette Neilson, it's to bad that they didn't have more time to work together on the film. The story plot of this film lacked and the directing and editing were also sub par. Speaking of Directing, I've also seen improvement in Donald Farmers work as a director. As for the rest of the actors Dana Plato did a good job and was well suited for her role. She has a perky attitude that is demanding of attention.

Let me give the pros first. Brigitte Nielsen looks really good in this film and actually acts capably. She is also killed off in about 10 minutes. There is an attractive actress at the beginning who gets naked and then killed stupidly.That's it. There's nothing else to recommend about it.Matt