Amazon.com video review:
Abel Ferrara, the bad boy of American independent filmmaking, made
his first splash with this violent twist on Death Wish and the
revenge-vigilante genre. Nastassja Kinski look-alike Zoë Tamerlis Lund
stars
as a beautiful mute seamstress in New York's garment district, a shrinking
violet who is brutally raped and assaulted not once but twice in the same
day. After dispatching the second predator in an adrenaline-driven rush of
panic, she pockets his handgun and disposes of the body in small chunks.
Tamerlis makes the most of her wordless role, her wide-eyed vulnerability
hardening to a dead-eyed determination as she transforms from quivering
victim to avenging dark angel, a one-woman vigilante force hunting pimps,
perverts, sickos, and slimeballs and using herself as bait. Consider this
Ferrara's Taxi Driver, a very different portrait of New York's mean
streets. Though this shot-on-the-cheap production occasionally suffers from
amateurish performances in supporting roles, Ferrara's impeccable eye for
composition and bravura sense of editing create momentum that carries it
through to its memorable Halloween party finale. Tamerlis is decked out
in a nun's habit with a slash of lipstick across her face, a handgun tucked
in a garter, and a contract out on the entire male sex. It's a deliriously
effective exploitation thriller that undercuts every expectation of the
genre. Ferrara makes a cameo as the first attacker. Tamerlis later
cowrote and costarred in Ferrara's most notorious production, Bad
Lieutenant. --Sean Axmaker
