The Passion Network (aka A Passion, 2001) from Brainscan

Let's see if I have this straight. A hard-looking redhead walks into a police station to report her boyfriend's murder. She weaves a tale of the rich and powerful, banding together to see their every desire fulfilled.

And the cops don't believe there is such a group.

Hey, it's called the Republican Party, nimrods.

So, okay, this is another sort of organization, one in which members of a network... The Passion Network... can order up some sex any time of the day or night. The redhead and her erstwhile boyfriend were forced into it, as those who would be called up when the urge struck one member, or sometimes two.

NUDITY REPORT

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And now he's dead.

The tale unfolds as Janna, the redhead, played by Stephanie Beaton, says some stuff to the skeptical cops, punctuated by some phrase such as, "This you'll never believe" and off we go to a filmed version of the incredible occurence. The only thing incredible about most of her stories, however, is that the guys leave their pants on while humping away. And we're not talkin' about no briefs that might permit lil' Willy out to play, no siree. We're talkin' about some of Levi Strauss' finest garb... denim y'all. Guys. Wearing them. While they are supposed to be boffing some chick. No wonder the cops don't believe her.

It ends up that her boyfriend is still alive.. for a while longer.. and that leads to an ending so shamelessly ridiculous, so inane... no make that asinine... as to destroy what little good will the movie had built up to that point. Slid this puppy right off the Movie House C range and into the D-- bin. Honest to goodness, they'd have been better off just letting the penultimate scene fade to black, leaving us with the vague impression the writer-director was a complete fuck-up, rather than spelling out an ending that removed all the doubt. Paul S. Parco, writer and director of this wretched mess, you suck. Even in a genre where all writers and directors sorta suck anyway, you stand out for just how long and how hard you suck with this ending.

Lots of babes give up major goodies. for while the guys hump with genitals covered, the babes do not.

  • Devin Devasquez, Heffer of the month for June 1985, plays an heiress who hires the boyfriend for a romp in bed and in the bath. Boobs, a little bush. Devin and her hired guy are joined by the major babe of this movie. Her name is Nichole McAuley. Despite the robohooters and the blonde hair this woman is a serious hottie. So I looked her up on IMDb. Lots of movies, some of them major productions, but she is most often listed as "uncredited." I figured a serious fan must have following her career and wrote it all down, which I could understand fully. But then I read her mini-bio and saw a sentence saying, "Nichole wants to thank her parents for supporting her career." Sheesh, the woman wrote this stuff herself.
  • What she left out of her autofilmgraphy is that Nicole McAuley is the model for an online explicit comic called Dakota Drake. 'Tis a pay site so I don't know how explicit it might be but the few pics I have seen on the web suggest that Nichole gets nekkid a lot online. In this movie, too. All body parts.


Other women are named and uncovered (an orgy scene and a three-way girl-girl scene fill up some more time and space with anonymous babes).

  • Jane Smith has a well-lighted sport-humpin scene. Jane is not exactly drop-dead gorgeous and she has more than a bit of a paunch on her waistline, but her upper goodies are a product of natural development. Impressive. BTW, The Gimp informs me that Jane is a former adult film star who used the name, Tina Tyler whilst doing the nasty for real.
  • Stephanie Beaton has, I don't know four, maybe five, sport-humping scenes. And I just wanted them to stop. I grabbed only the most attractive frames and then put together only the best of those to make four collages. Otherwise, Stephanie's chunky, silicon-enhanced frame is, to put things politely, not my cup of tea.
  • Tracy Turner plays a siliconized employee of the Passion Network. She boffs one guy in a men's room and another guy in a bedroom. Triple B performance with a close-up of a clean-shaven nether region.
  • One other, unidentified woman.

That's it, then. Lots of nekkid women, not all of them worth looking at, in a story that defines the word, "sucks" for this genre. Gotta tell ya, I spent way too much time on this for what I got out of it.

The Critics Vote ...

  • No major reviews online.

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a D-. Mediocre skin movie until a totally inept ending drove it down to a lower level.

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