Deadly Past Reviews

Former supermodel Carol Alt peddles her double-crossing ware to a chump who is so naive, he gets what's coming to him. The audience deserves better. Sandy Becker Morgan (Carol Alt) sashays into a bar owned by her ex-boyfriend, Luke (Ronny Marquette), who once took a drug rap for her. Sandy asks him to help her bury her dead husband. Jeopardizing his parole and his live-in relationship with sculptress Kirsten (Dedee Pfeiffer), Luke helps Sandy and fails to observe how deliberately she has placed his fingerprint-covered shovel near her husband's final resting place. Meanwhile, Sandy is peeved at a blackmail call from her hubby's former private investigator, Bruno (Vinnie Curto). Bruno has an incriminating video which actually shows Sandy cold-bloodedly slaying her husband. In the course of retrieving evidence damaging to Sandy, Luke shoots a cop; he gets Bruno's video for Sandy, who has not told him that she killed her husband. Bruno kidnaps innocent bystander Kirsten, who by this time has figured out philandering Luke's involvement in Sandy's instant divorce plot. Bruno ups his asking price to one million dollars in hush money. At a stand-off, with Kirsten locked in his car trunk, the cocky private eye faces triple-crossing Sandy, who shoots Bruno, who in turn pumps lead into Luke. After Sandy fires a round into the car trunk, Luke bashes in her skull with a shovel before he and Kirsten trek to Mexico to spend Sandy's hard-earned inheritance from her dead husband. Devoid of suspense due to a script choked with red herrings, DEADLY PAST is recommended only for die-hard erotic thriller fans. Can even they overlook a mountain of coincidences passing for a screenplay or the prodigious gullibility of the hero? Talk about Christian forgiveness! Luke doesn't just turn the other cheek--he helps his antagonists slip on their brass knuckles. Nothing conjured up by the director's mise-en-scene or the cinematographer's sleek artifice can persuade us Luke would risk love and liberty for a return engagement in the sack with this transparent Delilah. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, extensive nudity, substance abuse.)