Striking Poses (1999)

Too much of everything

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

(Some Spoilers) Mind numbing thriller involving popular tabloid photographer Gage Sullivan, Shanner Doherty, who thinks that she's being stalked by an either secret admirer, from afar, or a murderously bent psycho. The stalker who's about as obvious to the audience, when you see him without his flowing red wig, as the nose on theirs faces is only interested in photographing the tabloid photographer which is something that she does, greatly annoying those whom she photographs, for a living. Which is why whatever surprises there is in the film evaporates as soon as he makes his long awaited, for those still around and awake watching, grand appearance.Terrified in that she may be attacked or even killed by this chewing gum chewing, he leaves his chewed up chewing gum as a calling card, nut-case Gage hires at the insistence of her secretary Casey Roper, Tamara Gorski, the good looking tall dark & handsome Nick Angel, Joseph Griffin, to protect her. Nick just happens to be an electronic security expert, with just three years experience, who puts in a state of the art security system in Gage's home to keep her, and the local police, informed whenever the chewing gum chewing psycho is trying to break into her residence.As you would expect Nick soon falls for the cute tabloid photographer and that has him neglect his job of keeping her from getting killed or kidnapped by her stalker. What in fact happens is that Gage's secretary-Casey Roper-is kidnapped by the chewing gum chewing man when she ordered a pizza with everything on it, that's when Gage & Nick were out on the town, on the internet that he, the stalker, intercepted! We actually see at the start of the film that Gage escaped from her stalker while covered with blood, not her own, and were given this hour long flashback to what lead to the situation that she, at the beginning of the film, found herself in.***SPOILERS**** It's then when you think you've finally got some kind of a handle to what going on in the movie that it really starts to fall apart with enough double-crossing among everyone involved that you can fill, with crosses, a dozen Tic-Tac-Toe game boards! By the time the movie finally and mercifully ends your so punch drunk from from all the double-crossing in it that you couldn't care less to what it was trying to tell you for the previous 90 or so minutes. Which even its screenwriter aren't quite sure of!

I did not know what to expect when I watched this movie but I can tell you it left me guessing from the beginning to the ending, and the ending was what threw me so , this movie was well done for a made for TV movie. The story line kept you wondering who was actually involved and Shannen Doherty was great. She has so much talent and did such a good job in this movie. She brought believability to the role and dept to the character. She proved that no matter how her past is constantly being thrown back at her she has an incredible talent and puts more than one hundred percent into what she does. She proves that she can move on with her work.

The FIRST time you watch it. The second time is just boooring..Shannen Doherty I must say, is a good actress with great skills, that's why I think that she deserves better then this.The movie is is not a ripoff, but it just hasn't got the spark. It's definatelly NOT a movie of Shannen's, NOT her style of movies, even she does make good thrills.Nope I see Shannen in comedies, where you can laugh out loud when showing her boobs and wearing a tight, short skirt which shows her incredible nice legs. Ok well she can do that in a thriller too, but still she's a "Jay and Silent Bob" -kinda girl, who screams to the director to shut up.But the movie was really good, actually. More then what I expected from the actors.7 out of 10 stars.

The mostly decent performances from Shannen Doherty, Colm Feore, and Tamara Gorski were the best thing about this forgettable film. The dialogue is laughable and the plot is overflowing with twists and double-crosses, but it's hard to tell who's fooling who -- is the *character* bad at pretending to be loyal, or is the actor just bad at portraying the character? I can see why this one disappeared without a trace.