Stripped Naked (2009)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Ignore the 70s-style sleazy drive in movie box art. For a drug gangsters versus strippers exploitation movie, this one has surprisingly little overt violence and practically no nudity. Are the creators really that unaware of audience expectations in these matters? Hunh.Anyway, that said, it's not awful for what it is, but still not very good, and not recommended. The positives? The lighting and camera-work show evidence of operator familiarity, at least, a positive sign for any ultra-low budget production, many of which look like a wedding video shot by somebody's uncle. And the cast work hard to seem earnest, which is not quite the same as actually being good in their roles, but it's a start.The negatives are everything else. There are really no surprises in the routine running-from-the-mob plot line and the low budget forces the creators to keep their artistic and visual ambitions modest. There are no flashy visuals here, as everything was shot in found (ie cheaply rented) interiors and deserted roads and parking lots, likely very late at night when nobody was around checking on shooting permits. The script is pedestrian to be kind and the whole thing comes off as if the creators were happy just to have made a movie, any movie. Quality and originality were simply not in the budget.

Those familiar with my reviews may recall how I have proved previously that, in general, Canadian movies (with the exception of a few Atom Egoyan\Sarah Polley efforts) are one big cancer upon the world film industry. STRIPPED NAKED is no exception to this rule. Dolled up with intentionally folded and color-bleached publicity materials to bamboozle anyone looking for a 1970s-style sexploitation flick, STRIPPED NAKED's no-name cast of community theater reject actors slogs through a nonsensical plot featuring no fewer than FIVE sociopathic killers (only two of which supposedly were produced in similar circumstances). One of these killers interrupts her own on-going philosophical slaughter of sexual perverts to gun down the movie's main character in a personal revenge killing, after starting her homicidal career with a third type of murder: patricide. (If you add up the shown and described killings, the final tally is K-5, C-3, R-3, B-2, and H-1 = 14 total). To add insult to injury, the three featured so-called strippers (played by Sarah Allen, Tommie-Amber Pirie, and Jennilee Murray) NEVER actually strip. Apparently this trio and director Lee Demarbre have never heard of what STRIPTEASE did for Demi Moore's career, how BOOGIE NIGHTS put Heather Graham on the map, or how no one in Hollywood can forget Elizabeth Berkey in SHOWGIRLS. More likely, Canadian women take after Queen Elizabeth I, who historians reveal NEVER took off her underclothes in her adult life, and died with an inch of make-up caked on her face from decades of non-washing!

Seeing this was better than seeing a bunch of other low budget movies.There was even somewhat of a story that was entertaining.Most of the cast was well cast and while this wasn't the best film made, there was still enough interest to be captivating enough not to be a bore and not to be too cheap on the budget that it had.Filmed in Ottawa, Ontario and made to be in Ohio or around there didn't make any sense, as there was no reason for it to be called anything other than Ottawa, the city was unimportant.I was really looking forward to see the stripper chick get pshyco with a gun, but that doesn't come to be.Some characters were flat, but for a freebie, I didn't complain.

STRIPPED NAKED is a lot of fun, with a sexy anti-heroine protagonist, who has a tiny black heart and great big Technicolor dreams of what she would do with $90,000 and $90,000 worth of methamphetamines.Because the movie is so brightly lit and doesn't utilize the conventional shadowy visual language commonly associated with Noir Cinema, it's genuine noir aspects will probably be overlooked. But NOIR it is, reflective of a light-hearted James M. Cain story; fast moving and following grifters on the make.Kassie finds herself holding a bag of money and a bag of drugs, and sees her dreams of moving to France becoming a possibility. She returns home to take care of some loose ends, and of course her plans begin to get complicated. Her recently ex-ed boyfriend, her admiring roommate/lover, and her sleazy boss all unwittingly throw monkey wrenches into plans they don't even know she has, while (of course) a hit-man arrives looking for his boss's money and drugs. Meanwhile, someone in town is randomly killing some of the town's shadier denizens.Sarah Allen is startlingly sexy and alluring. Her blue eyes and elfin face are transfixing to look at. It's an unusual choice on the part of the filmmakers to make her as unlikeable and cold hearted as they do. (Think Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction), but it also makes the ending less predictable. A woman this naughty is less likely to earn a happy ending, after all.The Russ Meyer-esquire cover art and the strip club setting promise more lurid thrills than are actually on hand. The movie is fairly free of blood, sex, nudity, or violence, which when it happens, is not very graphic, but it is still a fun story.This is the kind of movie that I'm not sure why it was made, but I'm glad it was. A nice, fun afternoon movie to watch over lunch. Good show.