Yet another erotic thriller involving a web of lies and intrigue, this time around though there are no decent sex scenes to redeem it. Our protagonist must be one of the most lifeless human beings ever captured on celluloid. He has an incredibly good-looking wife that he never seems to look at or want to be with, but apparently he doesn't want to cheat on her with his co-worker either because damn it, the guy just really can't stand beautiful women. Back to incoherent rants about his work. The nudity is kept to an absolute minimum, which is pretty much the last thing you need in this sleazy kind of flick. Tawny Kitaen (or possibly her body double) has one brief nude scene, Shannon Whirry keeps her clothes on for the entire movie. That's just weird, is anyone really supposed to watch this for the gifted actors or the subtle writing? The ending is pretty inventive, I'll give it that.
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Sandcooler25 July 2010
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While there isn't a whole lot of sex in this Playboy production, and even though Miss. Whirry doesn't take her clothes off, "Playback" should receive mention for the presence of Tawny Kitean, who looks FANTASTIC with her reading glasses on. Extra points for the push-up bra she wears in the bedroom scene where her husband brings home an adult video.
If there are any ladies reading this review who have vision problems: Please, throw the contacts away and break out the glasses. Some men think that's really sexy. Makes you look intelligent too. -
Groverdox19 January 2019In erotic, straight-to-video b-movies, the protagonist is often a housewife, and they are always ignored by their business minded husbands.
In "Playback" the neglected housewife is played by music video girl Tawny Kitaen, she of the heavy auburn hair. The plot is complicated, though, by the presence of softcore goddess Shannon Whirry, who is just as career oriented as the husband she works with, but of course, also manages to have time to seduce him.
The movie also stars George Hamilton, aka "the tanned one", and Harry Dean Stanton. Before Whirry meets Stanton, she is approached by a young cowboy in a bar, and tells him to "suck my dick". You don't often hear women say that in movies.
The neglectful husband goes to a strip club with his other empty suit buddies. Strip clubs in movies like this may as well be sideshows of plastic surgery gone awry. There's always at least one woman whose breasts look like they're made out of plaster. Surgeons should go to these places and take notes.
I appreciate the fact that the neglectful husband in these movies is usually a good man, only neglectful because he is trying to improve his and his wife's lives. When he realises his wife is unsatisfied, he starts trying to change to please her. The wife will often also have a sex crazed best friend who will advise her, as she does here.
In this one, Shannon Whirry is the bad girl trying to seduce Kitaen's husband and screw him over at work. Harry Dean Stanton is the sleazy private dick who investigates the husband, and discovers his efforts to spice up his marriage, ie. watching the kinds of movies he's currently appearing in.
Watching Tawny and the husband have sex in a video that Stanton was somehow able to film, Whirry is presumably just trying to dig up dirt on the husband to bump him off the corporate ladder... but becomes turned on and sort of starts to masturbate (they don't go very far with this, for some reason). Whirry then not only wants to take the husband out of commission... she wants to seduce him! And when he demurs, can you guess what happens next?
"Playback" then, is like three typical softcore/thriller plots in one movie. It's the neglected housewife trying to spice up her marriage. It's the tale of corporate espionage as sexual politics conflict with office politics in the gender integrated modern workplace. AND it's a thriller about a dangerous woman who tries to seduce a man, gets "Scorned" (heh heh), and plots her revenge.
But the twists don't stop there. "Playback" is, like most straight-to-video softcore thriller b-movies from the '90s, just good, trashy fun. Characters don't behave or respond in any kind of believable way, but so what? That makes it more entertaining as you try to guess what ridiculous thing will happen next. It feels like there was a screenwriting conference where the producers used a pinwheel to dictate how their characters (particularly the husband) would react to his trials and tribulations, and just went from there.
There's also not that much sex or nudity in it, probably because there's so much plot, and the world hadn't yet happened upon the "Game of Thrones" method of exposition dumps mid-coitus. I also would have swapped Tawny Kitaen and Shannon Whirry's roles. In one scene, Tawny is looking at a glamour mag saying "how am I supposed to compete with that?" Um, did you ever look in the mirror, love? No, not just to check out how good your surgeon is.
I think Kitaen would have made a better femme fatale than Whirry, who would have made a better neglected, sexy young housewife-next-door. -
Cthulhu-2427 December 2000Just a standard softcore flick from the playboy factory - so you know what to expect: Bad script, sexy women; Tawny Kitaen is gorgeous and prevents the whole movie from drifting into oblivion (imho).
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tarpoff16 November 2002Worth watching. Probably the best quality film for Shannon Whirrey. Actual plot, reputable actors, an effort made in filming, editing, directing & production. Predictable and simple in many ways, but better than most of the efforts made by moviemakers over the past decade plus. Additionally, no, make that; More importantly, Tawni Kitaen looks GREAT throughout the movie and plays a significant role that's well done and finishes strong!
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bob2000-26 February 1999Argh, of all the god-awful movies, this one takes the cake. The main plot is an aspiring exec tries to spice up his sex life with his wife. In the process, he and his wife almost come close to extra-marital affairs and they get rather angry at each other. Unfortunately, the bad acting and the even more awful script contribute to a horrible movie. Also, these types of movies obviously comes with loads of sex, which this movie wholly lacks.