Play Nice (1992)

Director:

Terri Treas

Writers (WGA):

Michael Zand (story) &
Chuck McCollum (story) ...

Genre:

Thriller

Tagline:

She Plays Rough. She Plays Dirty. But She'll Never ... "Play Nice"

Plot:

A serial killer is on the loose, and a cop must track him (or her) down.

Plot Keywords:

Serial Killer | Woman Shot | Woman In Lingerie | Female Killer | Child Molestation

Cast

Ed O'Ross	...	Jack 'Mouth' Penucci
Louise Robey	...	Jill Crane / Rapunzel (as Robey)
Michael Zand	...	Dennis 'Crick' Crichmore
Bruce McGill	...	Captain Foxx
Ron Canada	...	Coroner
Ann Dusenberry	...	Pam Crichmore
Mark Carlton	...	Detective Ball
Scott Burkholder	...	Harold Wiesen
Irina Cashen	...	Melissa Crichmore
Jennifer Youngs	...	Hooker
Chuck McCollum	...	Police Station Drunk
Sandy Faison	...	Mrs. Holland
Amy Steel	...	Nancy
Prince Hughes	...	Rubbernecker
Mimi Maynard	...	Mrs. Kessler

Runtime:

USA:90 min (unrated version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R

Movie Connections:

References Sorceress (1982)

"dull thriller" should be an oxymoron, but it's not

A woman with long blonde hair has bondage sex with men, and at the moment of their climax, she shoots them with a pistol in the mouth. She leaves a lollipop on the pillow beside them. She targets men who are divorced, or who are getting a divorce, who've sexually abused their daughters (somehow) without being charged.

Detective "Mouth" is disliked by just about everyone on the force; he's got an unfunny, tasteless sense of humor. When he shows up at a crime scene, he rants about how everyone should be given a gun to blow each other away. He gives a kid who found the body his gun, and the kid starts pulling the trigger (each chamber is empty). This does not endear him to his boss. Later, when a reporter nicknamed "Weasel" is going through his trash, he urinates on him from an upstairs window!

He's put on the "Rapunzel" murder case, along with a new partner who will put up with him. He also starts going out with Jill, a long-haired brunette from the hall of records. Mouth's real name is Jack: Jack and Jill, har har... sigh. Anyway, we never see the face of Rapunzel during the murders, and Jill is the only major female character in the movie, so you can guess where that's headed far before the "revelation."

Jill starts getting rough with Mouth, and wanting to "play" his "little girl." Mouth is too dense to figure out what's going on until this goes on for some time, even though he fits the profile of a victim (divorved, lost custody) apart from the abuse part - although his sister had been sexually abused by his father.

The sex scenes are not particularly erotic, they seem awkward and poorly edited. One in which Mouth and Jill have sex on a rug on a hardwood floor, in which he slowly propels them across the floor on the rug, is downright silly.

The R-rated video apparently features sex scenes in lingerie and wet t-shirts, though I can't figure out where a wet t-shirt scene would have fit in. The unrated video has topless nude scenes, and frankly couldn't earn worse than an R had it been rated. According to Robey (Jill) on her website from a series of articles archived from Femmes Fatale magazine, the producers promised to distribute the unrated version abroad, and the R-rated one in the US, but they both got distributed here. The R-rated DVD from Platinum Disc Corporation features topless nude scenes and no lingerie or wet t-shirts, so it would seem to be the so- called "unrated" version.

Again according to Robey, she was pleased with the script, but not the direction. The writers defended the director, and criticized Robey's performance. Robey's agent then criticized the writers, and the acting performance of one of them who plays Mouth's partner.

I don't know who the blame lies with, but the movie isn't very good. There are scenes which make awkward transitions where people behave differently without proper motivation. This could be bad direction (Robey's position), or it could be that scenes were cut because the performances were unsalvageably bad (the writers' position). The partner isn't overacted as claimed, though - his performance is amateur but adequate.