MOVIE REVIEW : Skin-Deep Look at Porno Underworld

There’s an intelligent thriller lurking inside “Defenseless,” but the intelligence is constantly obscured by the B-movie plot devices and crude direction and a jangly score that telegraphs everything but the kitchen sink.

The setting for the film (citywide) is the porno underworld. T.K. (Barbara Hershey) is defending a real-estate tycoon Steven Seldes (J.T. Walsh) who is also her lover and, as it turns out, married to her best friend from college (Mary Beth Hurt). Seldes owns property that houses a porno operation using under-age actresses. He claims to know nothing about it, but you don’t cast the imperially shifty-eyed Walsh in a role like this without good cause. When T.K. shows up at the Seldes’ manse for a home-cooked family meal and observes the way his nubile daughter sidles up to Pops, her queasiness matches our own.

The porno underworld was dealt with in a ham-fisted, fire-and-brimstone manner in Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore”; in Brian De Palma’s “Body Double,” the porno sequences had a rabid, rot-in-hell flippancy. “Defenseless” (rated R for sex, language, violence) is a more evenhanded attempt to root out the subculture’s seaminess.

We’re introduced to a number of porno stars, with names like Jack Hammer (John Kapelos) and Bull Dozer (Jay O. Sanders), and their mixture of bravado and low cunning rings true. (The performances are expert.) The film, which was directed by Martin Campbell and scripted by James Hicks, is compelling whenever it crosses new territory. But most of the action is taken up with a clunky, familiar grade-Z plot involving the crazed father of one of the underage girls; he stalks the tycoon, who in turn is tailed by a homicide detective (Sam Shepard at his most annoyingly laconic). A murder rap implicates everyone from Steve’s wife to T.K. herself.

It’s pretty banal stuff, and the actors seem at a loss--defenseless, in the worst possible ways. Hershey’s not bad in “Defenseless,” but she’s moved beyond these kinds of roles. Her range is wider than this melodrama allows for, and Martin Campbell doesn’t seem to realize it. He builds the movie around T.K.’s physical imperilment rather than Hershey’s performing abilities. In her biggest scene, she hangs helpless in an elevator shaft.

‘Defenseless’

Barbara Hershey: T.K. Katwuller

J. T. Walsh: Steven Seldes

Sam Shepard: George Beutel

Mary Beth Hurt: Ellie Seldes

A New Visions presentation of a Bombyk/Missel production, released by Seven Arts through New Line Cinema. Director Martin Campbell. Producer Renee Missel and David Bombyk. Executive producers Taylor Hackford and Stuart Benjamin. Screenplay James Hicks. Cinematographer Phil Meheux. Editor Chris Wimble. Costumes Mary Rose. Music Curt Sobel. Production design Curtis Schnell. Art director Colin Irwin. Set decorator Douglas Mowat. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (sex, language, violence).