Even after winding and rewinding some sequences, viewers may scratch their heads at leading lady Michelle Johnson's many incarnations and reanimations in BODY SHOT, a complicated direct-to-video thriller.
Los Angeles paparazzi photographer Mickey Dane (Robert Patrick) can't keep his lens off media sensation Chelsea Savage (Johnson). The pop diva cherishes her privacy because a tour bus crash killed her sister and several band members. Whether clicking candids over her back fence or rifling through
Chelsea's garbage, Mickey can't control his one-sided affair de Nikon. A Chelsea-lookalike, Danielle Wilde (Johnson) undulates temptingly in Mickey's office; her story is that her husband Simon Deveraux (Jonathan Banks) requires his services for a coffee table book homage to the reclusive star.
Ruled by his glands, Mickey foolhardily snaps bondage photos of the ersatz Chelsea tied to bedposts. When a woman is found stabbed to death, Mickey's fingerprints are on the knife he used to cut his photo model loose. Hornswoggled, Mickey doesn't realize that Simon is really struggling musician
Blake Donner hired by Chelsea's manager Dwight Frye (Ray Wise) as part of a plot to control Chelsea's millions. Hint: remember the sister who allegedly perished in that bus crash? Mickey ends up scrutinizing his secret Chelsea snapshots for clues to piece the scheme together and vindicate himself,
but the big winner is duplicitous Danielle, who scoots off scot-free with a fortune.
Because this labyrinth is maneuvered with devilish abandon by the cast, all the happenstance which might stick in the audience's throat is easier to swallow. Whether viewers will catch the finer points of the con, they still enjoy a surfeit of surprises like Banks' flaming demise and automaton
actor Robert Patrick (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY) more animated than ever before here, bringing some panache to his seedy hero. Utilizing the development of photos to keep the narrative gliding smoothly, BODY SHOT may not be a worthy successor to BLOWUP but it does creatively incorporate
viewfinder voyeurism into the tale. Dmitri Logothetis' surprisingly snappy direction cancels out occasional embarrassments like a death-threatened couple taking a sex break at Griffith Park observatory, or the plot convenience positing Chelsea not only having a twin but a third reasonable
facsimile. Still, as femme fatales go, Johnson (BLAME IT ON RIO, GENUINE RISK) is a luscious double-crosser whom men probably wouldn't mind stopping a few bullets for. BODY SHOT sorely needs her sex appeal to convince us, as so many other of its brethren fail to do, that a lovestruck patsy might
let his lust organs override his cerebral cortex. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, nudity, sexual situations, substance abuse.)
