Cover Story (2002)

Simply Perfect

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Here's a case where the leading man is prettier than the leading lady. For certainly Jason Priestly out does Elizabeth Berkley in this department. I see this Berkley dame works a lot. Can't see why. I think she is terrible and definitely miscast in this one. I won't go into the story as it's so impossible to believe the actors in it. Ron Base wrote this and I wonder if he was happy with the casting. For certainly the story had a good possibility of success but for the casting of Berkley. She ruined the picture. The three people who did the makeup and hair had a challenge. She seemed to be made up like a whore. Much lip gloss and eye shadow, not to mention that stringy hair without any body. At times she resembled the wicked witch of the west. Lorna English, listed as wardrobe supervisor, should be commended. The only mention of costumes. For camouflaging our leading lady's large hips and backside. Wearing mostly black, skirts, pants and such, you could still see the enormity of her bottom. Have you ever seen editors with tops cut down to their kneecaps? It seemed every out was cleavage, what there was of it. Opening outfit was just embarrassing. White shirt open to her navel and a short short black skirt with a metal belt to advertise the width of her torso. The final outfit. jeans, really showed off her backside. Shot of her walking up stairs was too much. And the party dress, again cut won to the navel showed nothing desirable. I won't even go into the boxing outfit she wore. Those tights were not flattering. Truly a whore like look. And those spike shoes. Jason Priestly fared better in this and did what he could with a thankless role. He had warmth, sadly lacking in our heroine, and managed to pull off a one level role with some god acting. Costas Mandylor, playing our lady's assistant, did well playing the homosexual. He had some good moments as did J. R. Bourne as the brother. The men would have had a better time with a better actress to play opposite. Too bad as this could have been an interesting piece.

Elizabeth Berkley's acting was possibly the worst thing about the movie. No way could she ever come across as being a real editor. The other characters are shallow at best and leave the viewer unable to care about any of them. The plot line is average and, with a decent cast, would have raised my vote to average. The movie is characterized as being suspense but since the characters are so poorly acted, the viewer will probably hope that they all get killed before the film is over.I see that 11% of the votes were 10's which could only have been friends and relatives of the actors. Truly horrible acting.