Cry Wolf
Cry Wolf is an ambitious piece of work; a thriller, a mystery, a little bit of a romance, and a porn movie all in one. It demonstrates a level of skill, in some ways, that I have come to expect not to see in a Paul Thomas movie — for whatever reasons, PT’s name often shows up on some pretty unwatchable stuff, and I don’t know if whether this one just has his name on it but was helmed by someone else, or if that’s the case with some of the other things I’ve had to review. Like most of the award-winners for PT, this one’s moody, depressing, cynical and with a happy ending for no-one. On the other hand, in most of these moody pieces, there’s no-one in it who’s really likeable, so it doesn’t matter that non-one ends up happy — you kind of hope most of them will come to a bad end anyway.
Cry Wolf has put enough effort into the plot that it deserves a no-spoiler review; even if it falls short of perfect. I’m not going to do it the disservice of giving away what secrets it has, except to say that you should not expect to see the movie you have read about on the back cover copy, which was clearly written by someone at Vivid whose job is to write text but not to watch movies. It’s not that there aren’t mysteries and uncertainty to be found in Cry Wolf, it’s just that they aren’t the ones described on the cover.
Roger (Marcos Leon) is a former child star turned right-wing Christian TV star, who is moldering away in a huge mansion and struggling with constant urges that will certainly violate the morals clause of his contract. Danny (Mr. Marcus), his newly rediscovered childhood friend, is a former drug dealer and current bar owner with some troubles of his own, most notably a debt to Leon (Steven St. Croix), his supplier (and apparently, considering the size of his estate, that of many other small-timers as well). Sylvia (Monique Alexander) is the woman who ties all their stories together. Cry Wolf is a story of blackmail, doublecrossing, trust and mistrust, and for porn, it’s a pretty good one — you hear those words thrown around pretty freely on boxcovers, but rarely does anyone really put the effort into making a good movie that has all those elements. The plot does sort of start to rattle around the end, but it finishes up without coming completely apart. Where the movie really shines, though, is in the performances, particularly those of Marcos Leon as the vulnerable, confused and lost former child star — he really does a credible job of portraying an empty soul searching for something to prop him up — and the always reliable St. Croix, who often hams it up in his roles but really does a good job of playing a brutal but reasonable drug kingpin — it’s a relatively subtle performance that probably owes as much to the restraint of the director as it does to St. Croix’s skills.
The sex would be pretty Vivid standard if it were not for the fact that it is imbued with so much emotion by the well-acted and well-directed plot; the four main characters each have distinct personalities - each of the men gets a shot at Monique Alexander, and this is where the directing really comes to the fore. These scenes all resonate with the personalities of the men involved — Leon comes off as lost, desperate, confused and finally angry, Marcus as tough but tender, a man used to a hard life but satisfied to have found a haven, and St. Croix as casually decadent, jaded and essentially simply hedonistic. Monique Alexander reacts to each man differently — coquettish and then outraged with Leon, sweet with Marcus, and callously aggressive with St. Croix. It’s one of the better dynamics you’ll see on screen this year, and all the more impressive for bringing together four different personalities.
As for the rest of it, the sex scenes are entirely enjoyable, most at least contributing to the plot, and almost all of them revealing character, if not story. There’s a good party orgy with Tory Lane, Carly Parker and Lexxi Tyler, a scene with bar girls (Holly Wellin and Devon Lee), a scene with some groupies (Stefani Morgan and Jayna Oso), and a game of “Leon says” with Riley Mason, Marlie Moore and Stacy Thorn that looks like it would be fun to play if you were Leon. Bizarrely, though, the sex isn’t the only reason to watch this movie. It’s not perfect, but it does have much, much more to recommend it than just hydraulics.
