Bitch Slap

You'd hope the tongue of a movie called Bitch Slap would spend more time probing its cheek than licking its lips, but this softcore grindhouse homage embarrassingly fails to surpass cheesy self-molestation long enough to build a case for itself as anything other than a cheap diversion. Three scantily clad femme fatales trek out to the desert to steal $200 million in diamonds hidden by a mysterious gangster ninja. Cue leering slow motion introductory pans up each of the leading ladies as they exit a car housing a battered mobster in the trunk. Hel is the woman in charge: calm, cool, has a mysterious background and sports excessive cleavage. Camero is the muscle; she's half-crazed, aggressively gay, addicted to pills that make her extra angry and horny, has a slightly mysterious past and sports excessive cleavage. Trixie is the bait, a scared stripper who got roped into Hel's plan, has a questionably mysterious past and sports excessive cleavage. The story starts near the end then unfolds in reverse chronological order via flashbacks after jumping back to a present time set shortly before the near-ending teaser. The convoluted sequencing definitely aims to bite Tarantino's style more than Memento's, but the sloppy thievery from both is hard to ignore. The whole film is specifically shot in ultra-corny B-movie style, and when the scenes gain momentum, the editing stays snappy and the dialogue filthy Bitch Slap works. One of the better running jokes is the choice to use horribly obvious green screen for the backgrounds of every scene not shot in the primary desert location. It's that sort of winking ridiculousness that makes this sort of project appealing. Oh, and Zoë Bell's fight choreography, which is used as Bitch Slap's biggest marketing tool. If they'd gave the actresses at least as much time to scrap it out and deliver gutter-mouthed zingers as they did to fondle themselves and each other, this bitch would've been more slap than slop.