Dangerous Touch

Amanda Grace (Kate Vernon) is a pretty young psychologist with a popular sex-advice radio show in LA. At an autograph session promoting her new book, a man (Lou Diamond Phillips) hands her a copy with "I want you" already inscribed in it. Amanda is unimpressed by the come-on, but the man pursues, following her to a party where they have sex. One bizarre encounter later, Amanda pegs her mysterious beau, Mick Burrows, as an upscale hustler. During their third tryst, Mick secretly videotapes her, although he doesn't get her face on camera. Two thugs find Mick and demand the money he owes to a Mr. Stone (Max Gail). After enduring a beating, Mick kills them both. Later, he hires a prostitute and induces Amanda to have a lesbian encounter in front of the camera. Amanda tells Mick it's over, but he quietly disagrees and later sends her a tape of her tryst, initiating his blackmail scheme. Amanda searches Mick's room for the master tape in vain; she steals a suitcase of cash instead, hoping to use it as a bargaining chip. But Mick isn't interested in the money: he wants Amanda to bug Mr. Stone, who is one of her clients. When Amanda's conscience prompts her to tip Stone off about the listening device in her room, Mick finds out and leaves town, releasing the tapes to the media.

With Stone threatening her, Amanda finds Mick at a desert resort, where she pulls a gun and forces him to put on handcuffs. They drive down an empty road for a showdown with Mr. Stone and his thugs. Amanda gives Stone a bag of money in return for Mick's safety. But Stone promptly double-crosses her, and orders them both killed. Instead, Amanda shoots one of the thugs, and Mick then kills the other two. They drive away until Amanda orders Mick out of the car. She returns to her radio show and talks about being a survivor.

Although DANGEROUS TOUCH gathers speed at the finale, Lou Diamond Phillips, who also directed and co-wrote here, can't seem to make up his mind whether he's making an atmospheric sexual drama or a taut thriller. At their best, the sequences detailing Mick's warped seduction of Amanda feel like soft-porn Polanski, but they're mostly bogus philosophy and tepid sex talk overlaid with the obligatory crooning saxophones. Tension, obviously, is not at a premium. Only when Stone appears does the plot thicken to a satisfactory level. Meanwhile, an unconvincing subtext is meant to cast Amanda as some sort of feminist heroine--a "survivor" who emerges victorious and unrepentant. But the real emphasis here is on her abject submission to Mick's abuse, which is played for titillation. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, extreme profanity.) leave a comment