Customer Reviews

Body Language

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

BODY LANGUAGE stars Tom Berenger, Robert Patrick, Nancy Travis and Heidi Schanz. Berenger portrays a lonely criminal lawyer who meets a married exotic dancer (Schanz) by chance, and becomes her White Knight. Patrick plays Schanz's alcoholic, wife-beating, vicious, trailer-trash husband.

Berenger becomes consumed with helping Schanz escape from her miserable marriage and begins a slow, unstoppable descent as he is drawn further and further into Schanz's tortured reality. His character is innocent and vulnerable, an easy mark for anyone seeking his sympathy. Berenger's fall from grace is sickly nightmarish but has an inevitable quality to it that no one ever in a similar circumstance could fault. He never loses the viewer's compassion.

Schanz is incredibly sexual onscreen. The love scenes between Schanz and Berenger are not-quite explicit, and leave little (but just enough) to the imagination to avoid an NC-17 rating. Schanz moves between tawdry eroticism and wide-eyed ingenuousness with just a pout, a touch, and a thin sundress.

The acting is strong, though Patrick and Travis (as Berenger's law partner) have very little screen time compared to Berenger and Schanz. The novice Schanz carries the film.

A criticism of this film revolves around a technical point of the men's club business: no dancer's boyfriend or husband would ever be allowed back in the dressing room area to duke it out with anyone; bouncers would quickly eject violent customers. As a result, the initial confrontation between Berenger and Patrick inside the bar is simply beyond possibility. Too, the club, "Devil's Playground" seems far seedier and emptier than reality would dictate. However, the film does capture its own sense of depravity and evil with a master's touch.

BODY LANGUAGE is a low-budget erotic thriller made by HBO Films. Another reviewer states that the VHS version is edited; having seen this film on HBO, I can't comment on that. If you are a fan of the genre, BODY LANGUAGE is well worth seeing.

This was a competently made film, I suppose. The actors all did fine in their roles, and I like all the lead stars--Tom Berenger, Nancy Travis and Robert Patrick ("Terminator II" and "X-Files"). But still, this film was depressing. It was a bad knock-off of "Body Heat". The story was interesting enough if you aren't familiar with "Body Heat", but "Body Heat" is much better.

If you are a fan of any of the lead actors, you might want to catch this film just to see them, but be prepared. It's a depressing and somewhat tawdry B-movie. The main character (Berenger) is a lawyer with questionable morals who behaves like a complete gullible idiot and lets himself get sucked into something horrible. Patrick plays a wife-beating jerk--if you are a fan of his, you'll be disappointed because he doesn't get a lot of screen time. Travis plays the only character who is really likeable, and she's not in the movie nearly enough either.

I don't recommend this film. I wanted to see it in part because I so liked Berenger in "The Last of the Dogmen", made the same year as this film. Boy, what a contrast. I recommend "Dogmen" instead of this film (even though they are different genres). "Dogmen" will leave you feeling good, this film will leave you feeling depressed.

For what it's worth, the great sex scene here with Heidi SCHANZ (not Kluge like some dimwit mentioned) was apparently chopped a little between being telecast on HBO and released on video. I can't find any evidence that there is an uncut version available for purchase, so this is it. Shame too, because those few seconds made this practically as hot as the uncut Spader/Amick scene in "Dream Lover". Buy this only for the rare gem Heidi SCHANZ!!
UPDATE: The DVD has restored the full sex scene with the previously-trimmed overhead shots.

I'm a huge Tom Berenger fan but I simply can't say anything good about this film. The plot is horrible, the acting unconvincing (even Berenger), the dialouge laughable and the ending, well, sour to say the least. The pits.

I ordered this book thinking it was an informative book on learning body language. Instead, it turned out to be some movie made for HBO. I went ahead and watched it, but honestly if this show had shown up on TV one night, I would have changed the channel. It was really boring, acting was terrible, and predictable. ...

Body Language was a sexy thriller that had me on the edge of my seat. I remember taping it off Showtime in 1995 and only just rediscovered the flick in my old VHS cubbart when I randomly selected it for movies to view between my major genres. Berenger was good in this but I felt towards the middle things began to drag somewhat. Despite the slight gap in the script the movie kept me interested. The acting was very good and I really loved that it was not in the least predictable. All of the players were well cast in their roles and the director of the movie got great performances out of his cast and crew.

I have never seen Body Heat, so I have no basis for comparison. But as I do own the DVD version of Body Heat (Sitting On My DVD Shelf) I plan to see the movie as soon as I get the chance and then I can compare things. I'm also going to buy this movie on DVD and add it to my collection. I reccomend this movie to those who like thrillers.

I give this movie Three Stars and would give it 3.5 if I could, but that is not possible in this case. I reccomend that you see the movie and judge for yourself. The actress that played the stripper is gorgeous! I can see how she could conquer men! All us guys would be silly putty in her hands.

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.

Tom Berenger deserved a better role than this. In BODY LANGUAGE, he plays a criminal defense attorney who recklessly runs into a woman stranded on a road, then offers to drive her home. It turns out she lives in a nearby trailer park with an abusive boyfriend. He can't get her out of his mind and a romance begins. The amazing thing about this movie is that most attorneys (I am in training as a paralegal and have heard this in all my classes) are very wary of those they don't know, and would therefore be more cautious about "rushing into something" with someone like this, whom they ran into on a road. He doesn't even call the police to file a report when she begs him not to...something no attorney worried about his/her reputation would EVER do!

The plot defies any logic, and it's almost like someone dreamed this plot up when they had too much to drink (maybe they did). Nancy Travis is excellent as the attorney Berenger works with, and if he had had more sense, he would have seen that she really cared about him--it's obvious through the movie--and not taken up with this girl he knows nothing about, who is actually dangerous. If anything, a better title for this movie would have been "Appearances are Deceiving" or something of that nature!

My suggestion: If you want to watch a worthwhile Tom Berenger movie, order SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, a far better choice and much better vehicle for Berenger's excellent acting talents.

I perfer to see more Schanz Heidi, who played Dora in this movie. I think she is really good actress but she did not have a good agent to find a good chance to be famous. I know other people will give one or even no star to this movie. Therefore, I am just fairly to give it as four.:)