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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
ELEKTRA LUXX It’s helpful to know before going into Elektra Luxx that it is, in fact, a sequel to the film Women in Trouble. That film had many of the same characters as this one, which name drops some characters who don’t appear at all here (like Josh Brolin’s Nick Chapel). This time Gutierrez focuses on just one of woman in trouble, the title character played by the ever-beautiful Carla Gugino. Elektra Luxx, an ex-porn star pregnant with Chapel’s kid, has few prospects outside the business, besides teaching at a community college to everyday women on how to pleasure their man. The problem is that many who will go to Elektra Luxx will not know about Women in Trouble since it went very much under the radar in late 2009. And for the most part, it’s not the kind of sequel to go into blind since it references a little too heavily from the previous film—Chapel; Elektra’s porn star career; call girls Bambi and Holly Rocket (Emmanuelle Chriqui and Adrianne Palicki); and, most notably, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a Latino Rupert Pupkin-esque guy with a porn star website streaming from his mom’s basement. I wasn’t even sure until over halfway into the movie what some of the subplots—namely the one with the call girls—had to do with Elektra. Gutierrez does love himself some absurdity, and some of it works. One-liners click, and Gordon-Levitt gives it his all, albeit with limited screen time as a sad little man obsessed with Elektra and her former career. Even some of Elektra’s previous porn titles have their amusement (“Even Reverse Cowgirls Get the Blues”), but some of the absurdity falls flat or feels too tangential. At one point, Bambi and Holly are on a date with rich playboys, and Holly goes off on a long story having to do with Bambi’s grandmother or something (seen in black and white) and her trials with a general under fascist rule. The whole episode just falls flat. Other times, Gutierrez will give his lead actress (and real-life girlfriend) Gugino a random moment in the spotlight with a hot Chicago-style musical number that’s charming but has nothing to do with the movie save for the eye candy. The rest is a mixed bag of sex gags. The
cheap-looking film is also a little unnerving. It looks like it was shot
for late-light Cinemax television than for the big screen (with some
unimaginative direction too, like the usual two-shots and reversals,
despite a promising animated opening credits sequence). Gutierrez has a
lot of good ideas going on, but the script meanders too long (for a 100
minute movie, no less), though the cast is never less than interesting, if
only for who surprisingly shows up, like an uncredited Julianne Moore as
the Virgin Mary. “Please,” she says, “Just call me Mary.”
Jack Gattanella
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