To the Limit Reviews

Curvaceous model-turned-actress Anna Nicole Smith toplines here as a CIA agent in a "revealing" action pic about how often Anna can stop a careening plotline and crush it to her bosom. Renegade CIA agent Arthur Jameson (Jack Bannon), who murderously tries to cover up his earlier Vietnam misdeeds, makes two irrevocable errors in his witness cleanup mission: (1.) He blows up China Smith (Michael Nouri), a man who has hidden an incriminating computer disc and enjoys ties with the Mafia and (2.) He orders a hit on ex-Vietnam War hero Frankie (Joey Travolta) whose mob paisans are miffed when Jameson's ambush wounds Frankie and kills his bride-to-be on their wedding day. As Smith's widow, the CIA spook Colette (Anna Nicole Smith) goes undercover. Jameson chokes his sloppy hit lady to death, then sends an ersatz nurse to inject poison into ailing Frankie's I.V. Pulling out his tubes in time, Frankie allows his mob connections, Philly (John Aprea) and brother Joey (David Proval), to install him in their well-guarded Vegas hotel. In the meantime, a disguised Colette lives on the highway. Following the payback slaying of Jameson's fake nurse, Frankie's niece Mary (Melissa Martino) temporarily vanishes, then turns up in Vegas with the sought-after disk. Back at the cabin, Frankie's bodyguard staff is decimated, and suspicion falls on Colette as a backstabber. Infuriating the Mafiosi by ordering a hitwoman to take out Joey, and by blackmailing Philly with a video of him whacking a grafting senator, Jameson calls for a rendezvous at Hoover Dam. Since the taunting Jameson holds a pistol to Philly's noggin, Frankie hands over a fake CD-ROM disc. Colette shows her true colors by forcefully sailing the disk into the skull of Jameson, who takes a long plunge off the Dam. Clearly, the video hucksters responsible for TO THE LIMIT didn't pay too close attention to the plot of this over-plotted duel between ruthless CIA efficiency and Mob organizational skills. One comes to this conclusion because the de rigueur car chases and downpour of bullets represent a cinematic coatrack on which to hang four nudie set-pieces. All the heavy exposition about honor among the Mafiosi stereotypes fades into insignificance, as the movie calls a halt to artistic pretense and lets Anna disrobe, lather up, and hop into the sack with an actor old enough to be her father. As a physique, Ms. Smith is one of the wonders of the world, although not an altogether natural one. Aside from ogling Anna, viewers will yawn through not-so-special effects, cluck their tongues at the low budget (the church attendees at the wedding are obviously shot in a darkened soundstage, not on location), and roll their eyes at the smutty atmosphere, especially the sex scenes with ladies man Joey. Bustier than Raquel, breathier than Jayne, and less histrionically secure than Edy Williams, Anna Nicole Smith offers aroused cinephiles a childlike screen persona that could be described as a toddler struggling inside the body of Anita Ekberg. A true Hollywood original, Smith is a trailer trash goddess.(Graphic violence, extensive nudity, extreme profanity, sexual situations, substance abuse.)