Man, the 90's were a special decade for films of this nature. The 70's had regular exploitation movies and also basically the birth of porno, the 80's really didn't have too many of these kinds of films but it did usher in the age of cheaply shot, really terrible porno movies, then came the 90's. With Vivid and whatnot, the 90's gave us refined porno, with the genre getting about as mainstream as it could get, even having it's own Satelite channels, but it's still pornography which some people simply can't deal with. Welcome into your homes the Cinemax-sytled erotic thriller. Bro, they made tons of the movies in the 90's. Tons. With Shannon Tweed, Krista Allen and Kari Wuhrer becoming stars because of these movies. Today we're going back to the year 1995 to the film 'Forbidden Games' which unfortunately stars none of those prefore mentioned ladies, but this does not mean you won't get your fill of silicone filled boobs.
When we first meet Michael Brandon… check that… The first scene is some light S&M with a blindfolded, bound dude getting his chest shaved by two naked chicks with straight razors before getting murked. I guess getting shaved by straight razors blindfolded is a fetish? Who knew? Anyway, back our main character Michael Brandon (Jeff Griggs). He's enjoying the company of some naked tramp until his wife calls and ruins everything. About this wife of his, she's recently left him and all he wants is to have her back… by sleeping with literally anything that has a vagina throughout the course of this movie. Michael soon gets a visit from a hot chick… lotta hot chicks in this… who gives him an envelope full of money and an invie for lunch with her hot chick boss Shannon (Leslie Kay). Seems that guy that died in the first scene was Shannon's dad and she wants Michael, an ex something or another with the Justice Department, to find out who killed him. The autopsy said heart attack but Shannon knows it's murder and it had to be either her dad's tramp wife Rachel (Elizabeth Sandifer) or his floozie mistress Shauna (Amy Weber). Why does she want Michael, who is a washed up, broken down ex Justice agent? Because he's psychic. Duh.
So Michael gets down to investigating. Which basically consists of him touching stuff and having flashbacks about what might have happened, then eventually having sex with whomever he's supposed to investigating. The floozie mistress Shauna? Who lives in a house full of naked women? Threesome time! The mourning tramp of a widow? When Rachel wasn't taking a shower, which was rare, she is having sex with Michael. Sometimes in the shower. In between all this sex Michael is having, he does have a meetup with his soon to be ex-wife and professes his undying love for her and how he wants her back. Unfortunately, while she does still love Michael, he's a broke ass chump and she doesn't have time for that. Her new man is flush with loot and she will be marrying him as soon as papers go through.
Eventually while having sex with Rachel, because Michael needs to touch things to have these psychic visions and well, sex is a good way to touch somebody, Michael learns the truth! It will shock you! Or not!
Is 'Forbidden Games' a good movie? Of course not! It has really bad dialog recited badly by people who haven't quite learned to act yet. Take star Jeff Grimes for instance. He plays a tough police captain on one of the toughest cop shows ever made in 'Bosch' but here he looked bored stiff, despite all the naked people that surrounded him all the time. I had no idea Mr. Grimes was a rescue 90's softcore actor. We've been watching Amy Weber in terrible movies for decades now, and be it 25 year old Amy Weber of fifty year old Amy Weber, she's usually the hottest women in whatever movie full of hot women she chooses to appear in. Can she act.. well, you know, who cares.
What I will give 'Forbidden Games' and it's writer / director Edward Holtzman credit for is that is does at least try. I mean it attempts to be more than just of repository of naked women and softcore sex scenes and actually attempts to be a legit thriller. It doesn't reach those lofty goals, but damn it does try.
If we were to ignore all the naked women floating about and softcore sex scenes, and take this movie simply as a work of cinema, then we are left dealing with some incredibly terrible and shallow characters. It's a spoiler, but this is almost a 30 year old movie so I'm sure you don't care, but it turns out all three women killed the guy in the beginning. We could ask why his daughter was there dressed in fetish wear to kill her blindfolded father, but we aren't going to ask that. She hired Michael because he's a friend to the guy holding up the inheritance, and a word from Michael will get him to close the case. To insure Michael did this, they videotaped and photographed him having lots of sex to blackmail him, saying releasing the photos will ruin his career (he's unemployed) and ruin his family (he's childless and soon divorced). But they also offered him 3 million dollars. They should've just led off with that, because Mike took that 3 mil, and wouldn't you know his wife came back to him soon after? Of course she did. Yay?
All I'm saying is that there are way worse Skinemax era thrillers than this one. It does the basics, that being boobs, and attempts to also tell a story. Not a good story, not a coherent story, but it did try.
