Rating: **
Review Date: 2/26/05
Written, Directed, And Produced By: Scotty JX
Cast: Sylvia Saint, Veronica Zemanova, Silvie Thomas, Martina Fox,
Amy Easton, Amira Hazine
If gun porn is your thing, then look no further, because Scotty JX has got you covered. In a bleak, post apocalyptic future where clothing is optional and baby oil is mandatory, the lovely ladies of actiongirls.com star in a series of short vignettes where they shoot guns, get naked, and writhe around like exotic dancers. It's actually not bad, as it's neither what I expected, nor what I feared. However, that doesn't mean that it's good. Being a rabid girls with guns enthusiast, I'm very particular about the genre and I disagree with Scotty JX's vision, direction, and execution. I find naked women with guns entirely uninteresting and just a tad absurd. I much prefer watching clothed women, as clothing adds so much more drama, color, tension, texture, attitude, and emotional depth to the proceedings. It's just more visually appealing to me. However, whether out of necessity or not, he understands that sex sells, which makes it difficult for my own vision to succeed or be accepted by the mainstream.
Now that I've got my personal opinions out of the way, I'll try to be more objective about the title. Surprisingly, the production quality is fairly decent throughout. The locations are detailed and well lit, the cinematography is serviceable, the editing is reasonable, and the talent is good and fairly attractive. The camera work occasionally suffers from shoddy handheld shots, and the slow motion shots tend to be ineffective and look like they were done in post production rather than in-camera. To Scotty JX's credit, I have to point out that he frames his shots very well, which a lot of girls with guns photographers have trouble with. He treats the girl and the gun as one, and balances his compositions accordingly. Many photographers focus on either the girl OR the gun, which spoils the impact of the shot. The variety of weapons is very impressive, including revolvers, automatic pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, submachine guns, flamethrowers, gatling guns, and bazookas. The Desert Eagle continues to be a popular gun for women to pose with, which I find ridiculous due to its exagerrated proportions. It just looks silly. For the most part, the soundtrack is excellent, with only a few overly grating heavy metal compositions thrown in. The soundtrack also does a good job of masking the live ambient audio, which is a good thing.
Apart from an overly pretentious title exposition, the video has no illusions or aspirations to be anything more than it is. It's completely free of plot, dialog, and continuity, and exists solely to show off naked women shooting guns in a dilapidated industrial setting. Trying to add a plot with dialog would make the whole thing play out like an Andy Sidaris travesty, which NO ONE wants to see. Much to their credit, the women in the video take their roles very seriously and handle their firearms with confidence and flair. Sometimes they go a little too far, though, and come across as a parody of bad attitude. A couple of laughably inexplicable scenes include a topless Martina Fox (?) chopping and sawing wood, and a completely psychotic (and topless) Amira Hazine smashing watermelons. Huh? Very silly. Another interesting observation is that it appears that the girls only have one pair of pants and boots to share between them, which amusingly don't fit any of them. Overall, if you like watching strong and overtly sexual naked women shooting guns in Playboy Video style, then this is probably the best product on the market. Otherwise, it's probably not worth your time.