Young Frank Wheeler (Michael Patrick Carter) and his two friends have the brilliant idea to pool their milk money and head to the closest city to flag down a woman to show them her boobs. This brilliant notion allows them to cross paths with V, a prostitute played by Melanie Griffith, who ends up following them back to their small town on the run from her pimp. There Frank's mild-mannered single dad Ed Harris falls for V, not realizing her background.
I am really hard-pressed to figure out who the audience for this film is. It is entirely too smutty for a family film and no where near smutty enough for the adults that may find this theme appealing. Director (and former actor) Richard Benjamin continues to be a director of limited merit. It is absurd that in this day and age kids like Frank and his friends could not see bare boobs by sneaking into a movie theater or looking in art books or Playboy, but would resort to traveling to the Big City and being slapped by offended women who they approach in their naive and guileless way with their sordid offer. And am I the only one tired of the Big City being depicted as a morass of immorality while the Small Town gets idealized into some romantic bubble of innocence? How innocent can it be with kids like Frank running loose (not to mention the one kid's dad who knows V from past experience)? Harris is adequate as Frank's clueless dad, but how disheartening that in a few years time Melanie Griffith went from her Oscar-nominated peak in Working Girl to this dismal development. Griffith looks tired and blowsy as V. She is also reduced to playing one nonsense scene (which truly makes no sense at all) wherein she shows up at Frank's school in a tight outfit so he can give an anatomy demonstration in class. The scene comes out of no where narratively, is not funny at all, and since the film has no nudity it serves no titillation purposes. One is just incredibly embarrassed for all involved.
Naturally, all of this ends with a madcap, badly done car chase with the kids frantically driving V to safety from associated villains, because what cheesy film does not have a car chase for no good reason. Similarly, to say the "happy" ending is beyond a stretch would be pointless.
I am really hard-pressed to figure out who the audience for this film is. It is entirely too smutty for a family film and no where near smutty enough for the adults that may find this theme appealing. Director (and former actor) Richard Benjamin continues to be a director of limited merit. It is absurd that in this day and age kids like Frank and his friends could not see bare boobs by sneaking into a movie theater or looking in art books or Playboy, but would resort to traveling to the Big City and being slapped by offended women who they approach in their naive and guileless way with their sordid offer. And am I the only one tired of the Big City being depicted as a morass of immorality while the Small Town gets idealized into some romantic bubble of innocence? How innocent can it be with kids like Frank running loose (not to mention the one kid's dad who knows V from past experience)? Harris is adequate as Frank's clueless dad, but how disheartening that in a few years time Melanie Griffith went from her Oscar-nominated peak in Working Girl to this dismal development. Griffith looks tired and blowsy as V. She is also reduced to playing one nonsense scene (which truly makes no sense at all) wherein she shows up at Frank's school in a tight outfit so he can give an anatomy demonstration in class. The scene comes out of no where narratively, is not funny at all, and since the film has no nudity it serves no titillation purposes. One is just incredibly embarrassed for all involved.
Naturally, all of this ends with a madcap, badly done car chase with the kids frantically driving V to safety from associated villains, because what cheesy film does not have a car chase for no good reason. Similarly, to say the "happy" ending is beyond a stretch would be pointless.