As Felix Unger taught us lo those many years ago, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me. Reader, here I confess that I made an ass out of us all with this one. After watching Susan Lucci in The Woman Who Sinned, I noticed In Her Defense, another title with a similar plot (adultery, murder, legal jeopardy). It starred Marlee Matlin and Michael Dudikoff, who played the schmuck with whom Lucci sinned, and I thought maybe the films would make a decent double feature.
How wrong I was! By the time I realized this was not a campy TV movie of the week but dreary Canadian direct-to-cable-or-video dreck, I’d invested enough time in watching it that I didn’t want to scrap the whole thing. Gird your loins if you plan to continue reading, because this was brutally bad. Its saving grace was a half-baked lesbian twist that, despite feeling somewhat random, was less than surprising to anyone who has seen Basic Instinct.
Dudikoff plays Andrew Garfield, a disgraced former prosecutor turned struggling defense attorney who hustles for work in ill-fitting suits and a beat-up station wagon. At an art exhibition, between banter with ex-lover Debra Turner (Sophie Lorain), a Crown prosecutor, he meets and is captivated by Jane Claire (Matlin). They briefly converse in sign language, which Andrew learned from a former girlfriend, before she’s hustled away by her loutish husband. Shortly thereafter, she visits his office with questions about her pre-nup.
“In a divorce, the settlement is more than adequate. It’s just in the event of his death that you’re sole beneficiary,” Andrew tells her. Before you can say “conflict of interest,” he’s making house calls to her in New Brunswick and they’re doing a lot more than just talking with their hands. The saxophone music at the start of the movie promised us illicit encounters, but the sheer amount of completely unerotic sex we’re treated to here was quite Cinemaxian. In a derivative film with Body Heat and Basic Instinct aspirations, this plays more like Another 9 1/2 Weeks.
The screenplay, credited to Marc Lynn and Jeffrey M. Rosenbaum, doesn’t come close to achieving full Joe Eszterhas nastiness, but there’s a moment or two that’s good for a laugh. That includes the surprise witness in Jane’s murder trial, whose testimony reminds us a bit of Steve Martin in The Jerk: “We was poor. I had to leave her in a foster home. I think she hated me for it.” And then there’s the twist, which I’m spoiling to spare you the agony of having to sit through this mess.
It turns out Debra, who has a certain air about her, has a history with Jane. (Let’s cut to the chase: she trips the gaydar so hard the standard pinging noise is replaced by the jaunty guitar riff from “All the Young Girls Love Alice.”) This revelation is mostly out of left field, but it also explains the “playful” rivalry Debra shared with Andrew, which he viewed as more of a flirtation — not to mention a strange and awkward interrogation scene the women previously shared.
Andrew gets his obligatory lines of “You are sick. You are sick!” but viewers are treated to only platonic affection between the women, which seems odd in a film with so much gratuitous sex. The direction feels mostly absent, as if the film were edited in ways unintended by veteran director Sidney J. Furie. Dudikoff and Lorain, like the rest of the cast, are competent but not captivating. Most depressingly, Oscar winner Matlin is just here for the paycheck.
Streaming and DVD availability
In Her Defense, also known as Total Defense, goes in and out of print on DVD. You can also currently stream it for free (with ads) via IMDb TV on Amazon.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
Nope, there’s not. We’ve suffered enough.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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