Cheapo DVD Review: The Girl From The Naked Eye (2012)

Starring

Jason Yee

Samantha Streets

Ron Yuan

Gary Stretch

Dominique Swain

Sasha Grey

Jerry Ying

 "When a high-class escort is found murdered, her protector Jake is crushed. he loved her and now he'll stop at nothing to find her killer. Leaving a bloody trail in his wake, Jake risks everything to uncover the truth and take his vengeance.

The Girl From The Naked Eye takes us through an underground world of sex and drugs where nothing is savoury and everything is deadly."

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Sin City" aren't you?

There is another DVD cover out there that suggests that's the reaction the producers were hoping for.

 Oh very subtle. 

  Can I also point out that neither of the girls on this cover is in it for very long. The sultry brunette is in it for two scenes (one rather odd sex scene and getting a backhander from the hero.) while the blonde also gets two scenes (briefly popping up in a bar to offer useful advice.) Meanwhile poor Samantha Streets (who plays unfortunate female lead Sandy) is utterly ignored. A shame because she makes a decent stab at it and in a film where literally every female character is a hooker or a stripper her girl-next-door look is refreshing. But hey, let's focus on the ex-porn star  who was in "Entourage".

 Dammit I hate it when film distributors do that. Remember when Pamela Anderson suddenly became the biggest pinup in the Western world and every single film in which she'd had a walk-on part  suddenly got re-released with her name and boobs splashed across the cover?

Where was I...

 This is almost certainly the cheapest DVD I've ever written about. It cost me one of these:

You can't even get a Mars Bar for that these days. So my expectations were low. 

 But as it turns out, despite having a terrible, terrible name that makes it sound like a porn film "The Girl From The Naked Eye" isn't bad. 

 It's not brilliant either but did I mention that I paid 50p for this?  At that price, opening the box to find the DVD is actually in there makes for a nice surprise.

  It will surprise nobody to know that hero Jake gets in some serious monologuing, using that special gruff semi-whisper people only use when they're talking about the "Dark side of the city" and so on. 

  And as expected, Jake spends most of the film relentlessly working his way from one suspect to the next, doing violent things unto them and anybody daft enough to get in his way. 

  There's some highly respectable violence in this film, by the way. Nothing too flashy or over-choreographed, just good, solid facebreaking.

 I'm willing to forgive the scene blatantly cribbed from "Oldboy" 

 Whenever he's not hitting people, he breaks out the ciggies. It explains the voice-over I suppose.

  Balancing out the "Man on a mission" punchy-stuff, the relationship between Jake and the doomed Sandy is fleshed out through flashbacks. Despite occasionally dipping into sappiness this does give you some idea why our hero cared so much about Sandy and why he's so pissed off.

  Acting? More than decent from everybody concerned. No obvious weak links that I could see. The dialogue is a tad formulaic in places but *shrug* that's about par for the course.

  I do take issue with some of the soundtrack choices though. I can sort of see where they were going with it, - and lord knows it's nice to hear something beyond aggro-metal and shouty hip-hop -  but setting a brutal punchup to a semi-muted Ravel's "Bolero" is just peculiar. 

  

How much did I pay for this: Less than the price of a Greggs doughnut. 

Was it worth it?  Definitely. "The Girl With The Naked Eye" isn't brilliant but I found myself enjoying the ride.

 I just checked the back of the DVD cover. Samantha Streets doesn't make an appearance there either but the four women who do are on screen for a grand total of five minutes between them. So what the hell, here's a piccie.

 And here's the trailer.

That's all folks.