Boulevard Reviews

A gutter tale in more ways than one, BOULEVARD's highly questionable intentions are overshadowed by violent interludes that leave a nasty aftertaste. After putting her newborn up for adoption, small-town girl Jennefer (Kari Wuhrer) decides to leave abusive boyfriend J-Rod (Joel Bissonnette) and travel to Toronto. She lives on the street until Ola (Rae Dawn Chong), a jaded prostitute, takes her in as a roommate. The pair slowly warm to each other, but their fortunes change when Ola witnesses sadistic pimp Hassan (Lou Diamond Phillips) killing one of his hookers. Ola is repeatedly threatened by Hassan, while Jennefer eventually succumbs to streetwalking. With Ola's sage advice, Jennefer gains the gumption to deal with the reappearance of vindictive J-Rod, whom she fatally shoots. Meanwhile Ola heads for a confrontation with Hassan, which results in her brutal beating and hospitalization. Jennefer seeks out and kills Hassan. Ola dies in the hospital, and Jennefer boards the next bus heading back to her small town. The cast gamely plod through their paces, imbuing the cardboard characters with stone-faced conviction. The sole exception is Phillips, who goes willfully over the top as Hassan, an eccentric villain who relaxes after tormenting his hookers by practicing his golf swing. There's no chance, though, that the picture can simply be written off as mere sexploitation. The filmmakers attempt to emphasize the feminist bonding of Ola and Jennefer (with a lesbian liaison tossed in for good measure), but this thoroughly unpleasant straight-to-video sleaze's sudden, cruel acts of brutality disqualify it from being the evocative portrait of street life it pretends to be. Meanwhile BOULEVARD's half-baked melodramatics will alienate fans of the "streetwalkers in jeopardy" movies that flourished in the 1980s with the VICE SQUAD and ANGEL series. (Graphic violence, extensive profanity, sexual situations, adult situations.)