Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992 TAG: 9201250311
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`LOVE CRIMES' IS GUILTY OF BEING FLAT AND MURKY
In "Love Crimes," Sean Young plays an ambitious assistant district attorney in Atlanta.Her name is Dana Greenway, and she wants to be in on all the busts - her conviction rate is higher, she says. Dana takes her cases personally. When women begin to appear in her office to report a con man who poses as a famous photographer and then persuades them to have sex by playing to their fantasies, Dana decides to bulldog the case. However, she finds she's not invulnerable to her own obsessions.
It's an interesting premise but not one fully realized.
Director Lizzie Borden, who made the low-budget but intriguing "Working Girls," hasn't graduated to a more sophisticated visual style. Despite its volatile subject matter, "Love Crimes" is flat - from the performances to the action and the overall look of the movie.
Patrick Bergin again plays a creep along the lines of his character in "Sleeping with the Enemy."
He calls himself David Hanover, and he stalks women with a camera, making them at first feel attractive and then vulnerable. After his seductions, he often as not robs them. But even the ones who press charges seem ambivalent about him. The feel like they've been tricked into sex, but they're not quite sure about it.
Dana decides to pursue the culprit and follows the leads to Savannah, where she intends to pose as another woman susceptible to David's approaches and snare him.
Borden, directing from a screenplay by Allan Moyle and Laurie Frank, intends to keep the audience off balance. But what should serve as ambiguity, complexity and depth is finally just murky.
The performances are one of the reasons. Young's antics off-screen are generally more livelyand interesting than her performances on screen. Her character is supposed to be repressed but also propelled by her inner demons. Young seems merely brittle. Bergin is a cipher as David, a bland manipulator who oddly seems to find some sympathy from the director.
The best performance comes from Arnetia Walker, as Dana's friend who tracks her down.
Ultimately, this is one of those thrillers in which supposedly smart people do stupid things. Like the time Dana lets her prisoner handcuff himself and leaves him in the car while she makes a phone call.
This isn't the first thriller to build its plot on such numbskull actions, but it aspires to be more. `Love Crimes':
A Millimeter picture at Valley View Mall 6. Rated R for nudity, violence and sexual content; 85 minutes.