Hussy

British flick about the tumultuous relationship between a middle aged London call girl and an American widower, which becomes dangerous when her violent ex is released from jail and moves in with them. There's some snappy dialog, a couple of really tense dramatic scenes and Helen Mirren gets naked a few times...but it's also kind of unfocused and never really lives up to the sleaze potential of the title.

Ugly, poorly made, sleazy exploitainer is essentially an awkward hybrid of PRETTY WOMAN and LEAVING LAS VEGAS (though predating both), told in a very muddled, pretentious style, which makes most of the action (especially in the early stages) almost incomprehensible. Sole saving grace is Mirren, who has a few good scenes as the ageing 'hussy', but she cannot save the otherwise dreary, confusing goings-on.

John Shea & Helen Mirren deliver solid performances, but the narrative is so incredibly clunky and the entire subplot around Alex is just infuriating. Nobody would put up with such an abhorrent piece of trash in that kind of scenario, nobody. You cannot convince me otherwise. Anyway, the plot falls apart halfway through when it decides to turn from erotic drama to crime thriller without any warning, and it does a poor job of pulling that off. The happy ending feels cheap and unearned. Meh.

What a mess of a story. The one single positive thing about it is Shea's acting, whereas Mirren isn't convincing in any scene.