BODY LANGUAGE NOT ONE OF BERENGER's BEST
Added 5/16/2009
Tom Berenger deserved a better role than this. In BODY LANGUAGE, he plays a criminal defense attorney who recklessly runs into a woman stranded on a road, then offers to drive her home. It turns out she lives in a nearby trailer park with an abusive boyfriend. He can't get her out of his mind and a romance begins. The amazing thing about this movie is that most attorneys (I am in training as a paralegal and have heard this in all my classes) are very wary of those they don't know, and would therefore be more cautious about "rushing into something" with someone like this, whom they ran into on a road. He doesn't even call the police to file a report when she begs him not to...something no attorney worried about his/her reputation would EVER do!
The plot defies any logic, and it's almost like someone dreamed this plot up when they had too much to drink (maybe they did). Nancy Travis is excellent as the attorney Berenger works with, and if he had had more sense, he would have seen that she really cared about him--it's obvious through the movie--and not taken up with this girl he knows nothing about, who is actually dangerous. If anything, a better title for this movie would have been "Appearances are Deceiving" or something of that nature!
My suggestion: If you want to watch a worthwhile Tom Berenger movie, order SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, a far better choice and much better vehicle for Berenger's excellent acting talents.
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Through A Glass, And Darkly...
Added 4/18/2005
BODY LANGUAGE stars Tom Berenger, Robert Patrick, Nancy Travis and Heidi Schanz. Berenger portrays a lonely criminal lawyer who meets a married exotic dancer (Schanz) by chance, and becomes her White Knight. Patrick plays Schanz's alcoholic, wife-beating, vicious, trailer-trash husband.
Berenger becomes consumed with helping Schanz escape from her miserable marriage and begins a slow, unstoppable descent as he is drawn further and further into Schanz's tortured reality. His character is innocent and vulnerable, an easy mark for anyone seeking his sympathy. Berenger's fall from grace is sickly nightmarish but has an inevitable quality to it that no one ever in a similar circumstance could fault. He never loses the viewer's compassion.
Schanz is incredibly sexual onscreen. The love scenes between Schanz and Berenger are not-quite explicit, and leave little (but just enough) to the imagination to avoid an NC-17 rating. Schanz moves between tawdry eroticism and wide-eyed ingenuousness with just a pout, a touch, and a thin sundress.
The acting is strong, though Patrick and Travis (as Berenger's law partner) have very little screen time compared to Berenger and Schanz. The novice Schanz carries the film.
A criticism of this film revolves around a technical point of the men's club business: no dancer's boyfriend or husband would ever be allowed back in the dressing room area to duke it out with anyone; bouncers would quickly eject violent customers. As a result, the initial confrontation between Berenger and Patrick inside the bar is simply beyond possibility. Too, the club, "Devil's Playground" seems far seedier and emptier than reality would dictate. However, the film does capture its own sense of depravity and evil with a master's touch.
BODY LANGUAGE is a low-budget erotic thriller made by HBO Films. Another reviewer states that the VHS version is edited; having seen this film on HBO, I can't comment on that. If you are a fan of the genre, BODY LANGUAGE is well worth seeing.
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VHS is cut version of film shown on tv
Added 6/30/2004
For what it's worth, the great sex scene here with Heidi SCHANZ (not Kluge like some dimwit mentioned) was apparently chopped a little between being telecast on HBO and released on video. I can't find any evidence that there is an uncut version available for purchase, so this is it. Shame too, because those few seconds made this practically as hot as the uncut Spader/Amick scene in "Dream Lover". Buy this only for the rare gem Heidi SCHANZ!!
UPDATE: The DVD has restored the full sex scene with the previously-trimmed overhead shots.
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I'm a huge Tom Berenger fan but I simply can't say anything good about this film. The plot is horrible, the acting unconvincing (even Berenger), the dialouge laughable and the ending, well, sour to say the least. The pits.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Heidi Kluge is HOT..HOT..HOT
Added 6/29/2003
This film is worth seeing for Heidi Kluge (the co-star). Also, it's not a bad movie in the Black Widow veign...In any case..Enjoy Ms. Kluge
0 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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