A minor-league DISCLOSURE, DISCRETION ASSURED attempts to merge a corporate espionage narrative with the steamy thrills of the FATAL ATTRACTION subgenre. Cramming in subplots sufficient for a dozen soap operas, this fitfully effective suspense film orchestrates an exciting set-up but fails
to provide a satisfying conclusion.
In exotic Brazil, transplanted Brit Trevor McCabe (Michael York) deals with the sexual malaise of his wife Kitten (Dee Wallace Stone) by trysting with his business partner's nymphomaniacal spouse Paige (Jennifer O'Neill). Meanwhile, at the office, someone is embezzling funds from corporate
accounts. Neither Paige's shifty husband Frank (Will Kepper) nor Trevor's second-in-command Austin (Granger Hines) can provide a satisfactory explanation or quiet disgruntled investors. With Trevor on his trail, Frank pays a high class call girl-struggling artist named Miranda (Elizabeth Gracen)
to bewitch his partner. This infuriates Paige, who launches a campaign of harassment. Distracted from investigating his company's losses, Trevor bungles his extra-marital affairs so badly that his wife throws him out. Then Paige is shot to death.
While under suspicion for this murder, Trevor questions Frank's long-time playmate Madame Pandora (Tamara Taxman), who's been functioning as a conduit for the funds Frank siphoned from the company. Austin reveals that he misappropriated $50,000 to cover gambling debts; Frank and Paige
subsequently blackmailed him into keeping mum about their theft of millions. Although Frank remains at large in Brazil with some of the money, Pandora returns most of the funds he deposited in her name. With Paige's homicide blamed on Frank and with his family away in Cleveland, Trevor returns to
Miranda--who now reveals herself to be Pandora's daughter. Miranda wins Trevor back without telling him that she murdered Paige to clear the way for her long-suffering mom to nab Frank for herself.
Before it falls apart in a conclusion that leaves too many loose ends, DISCRETION ASSURED supplies more than its share of suspense, doling out plenty of motive for each suspect. Unfortunately, it falters on a number of points. Too much screen time is lavished on Trevor's consuming passion for
Miranda; that time would have been better utilized in following Trevor as he investigates the company's vanishing funds---a major subplot that isn't given nearly the attention it needs. And it's never made clear why Trevor neglects his company so egregiously, losing mega-dollars and betraying the
trust of thousands of people: not even Miranda could be that good in bed. The character of over-sexed, neurotic Paige might have been chilling in the hands of a more capable actress, but O'Neill's tipsy temptress act doesn't carry the weight of menace.
To the film's credit, it evidences some visual inventiveness; arresting slow-motion and gliding camera movements swoop down on key moments of tension. Yet, the movie's sleek cinematography and slick direction service a screenplay that sorely needed to redefine and then compact its contiguous
plot lines. DISCRETION ASSURED is both overstuffed and underdeveloped. (Violence, extreme profanity, extensive nudity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
