★ 5 / 10
JUST OKAY - (5 stars out of 10)
BlueBoyReviews
The stage curtains open ..."Ultimate Desire". Great premise. Great characters. Great plot. Unique angle on an erotic thriller. Terrible ending. What a shame.…
The stage curtains open ..."Ultimate Desire". Great premise. Great characters. Great plot. Unique angle on an erotic thriller. Terrible ending. What a shame. The only two other movies I remember Kate Hodge from were "Hidden 2" and "Rapid Fire" - most especially "Rapid Fire", where she plays a character completely different from the one in this film. So different, in fact, that it almost felt like I was watching an entirely different actress altogether. After watching this one for the first time tonight, here are my observations. But first, what it's about.The film starts out with great promise as we are witness to the first murder. A sexy, sensual nude woman is blindfolded and is pouring a perfume called "Desire" all over her body just before being stabbed to death. A formula that would be repeated again and again as the body count builds. Investigating the murders. In tandem with a homicide detective, is Lauren Allen - a field officer for the perfume company's corporate security team. As the story progresses, we are introduced to the major players and suspects that cascades down to the inevitable climactic life or death confrontation.The movie is a bit formulaic, but the very unique angle of the perfume industry and the in's and out's of the business I actually found to be intriguing. Her love interest and his attention to the sense of smell, and how his whole world is built around it, was a refreshing take on a character in this genre. However, there are some flaws and drawbacks, of course, like any movie. The film was shot with an excessive amount of close-ups, so we don't really get a good sense of the landscape behind the characters, or an atmosphere of their surroundings. This movie is 100% character and performance driven. Definitely low on style, which I find ironic given the subject matter.As I indicated at the outset, the movie was fine right up until the very end where the air just completely bottoms out and the story deflates rapidly. Plain and simple, it was a cop out ending. They string you along and then hit you with something you could've never guessed - from way out of left field. All of the red herrings had better stories and motivations than what the real killer had. A very weak payoff. However, overall, it was till an enjoyable watch which finishes with an average rating.
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bob the moo
Lauren Allen (Katie Hodge) is an ex-cop working on corporate espionage for leading perfume designer Grace Lantel (Deborah Shelton). When someone begins…
Lauren Allen (Katie Hodge) is an ex-cop working on corporate espionage for leading perfume designer Grace Lantel (Deborah Shelton). When someone begins murdering women and leaving bottles of Lantel's new perfume, Desire, as a calling card all clues point to competing perfume designer Gordon Lewis (Martin Kemp). Allen joins up with Nick Palermo (Robert Miranda) to investigate.This is essentially an erotic drama - i.e. a thin mystery plot that is an excuse to have several nude/sex scenes to bring in the dirty mac audience. Every time someone is killed we are "treated" to the victim rubbing the perfume all over their bodies. It's not even that titillating so that only leaves the story to save the film.However the mystery is nothing special, as with all these things it's secondary to the nudity. It's hard to care who's killing these women and if you do try to work it out you'll be disappointed. As with all erotic dramas the murderer is never the most obvious character and here the ending is absurd in it's unexpectedness and neatness. It's as if the writer just decides that we've all seen enough breasts and he needs to finish up the mystery. However most people watching this probably don't care about the mystery plot and have ...... erm......how can I say this 'finished your involvement' by the halfway mark - if you know what I mean!It's funny to see Martin Kemp in an erotic drama - espically now he is experiencing a career renewal in the UK, but here he doesn't really need to put on a good performance. All he has to do is act mysterious as redherrings bounce all round him. Hodge is quite good in the lead and tries to lend some depth with a background story of why she quit the force, but even she is called on to bring some nudity to the proceedings to keep the audience interested.The only good performance is that of Miranda as Nick Palermo the cop investigating the crimes. He doesn't do anything other than the friendly cop routine but he does it well and makes it feel like his character deserves to be in a better crime thriller rather than a shoddy erotic drama.Overall this doesn't even try to be anything other than a cheap erotic thriller. Two problems - it's not very erotic and it isn't thrilling in the least. If you considering watching this then you should ask yourself why - if you want titillation why not go and buy a top-shelf magazine? If you want a thriller there's bound to be better ones available in even the smallest video store
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★ 1 / 10
Flat Erotic Movie Not To Be Sniffed At!
cynet-43368
OK where do I start with this lacklustre erotic drama where the killer makes them spray the perfume Desire all over their body and then stabs them because?Who…
OK where do I start with this lacklustre erotic drama where the killer makes them spray the perfume Desire all over their body and then stabs them because?Who cares would be my answer to this naff movie because its all about the sniff technique allegedly?Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet fame plays the lead male role because obviously his brother Gary was starring in a much better production of the body guard with Whitney Houston so the casting agent had to go with the lesser Martin sadly.Back to the main plot the main woman character is damaged because she shot her partner by accident when they were in the police. So she is an undercover perfume investigator, no not making it up that's her real job.To cut a long story short she works out the killer and you kind of get the rest of course because the killer is? I wont reveal any spoilers but Martin Kemp does a great impersonation of a serial sniffer routine.Overall the film is ridiculous and just bonkers on every level making it just frankly unbelievable utter tosh!1/10 and the one score is for Martin sniffing technique which would make any coke head proud.
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4.3/10
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Seeing this kind of film it came to my mind... We (men of culture) need some Shannon Whirry movies