I was (un)fortunate enough to have had a day off sick and bought some ex-rental movies from the video place that week, and two of them were Harlequin books in movie format.

Oh.  My.  God.

Late nineties contemporary Harlequin in visual form was precisely as bad as you think it was.  Complete with farcical comedy in the middle of what was probably supposed to be a suspenseful build-up and a WTF ending, it was everything I expected.  Bit slack on the love scenes though – they even closed the bloody door on us!

This is more of a steam of consciousness diatribe than a review, but I hope you like it anyway.

Based on the enormously popular Harlequin Mills and Boon romance novels, this series of made-for-tv movies are filled with intrigue, highly charged love scenes, international sophistication and the trademark guaranteed happy ending.

Recipe For Revenge: Struggling to get her catering career off the ground, Carly Westin is in no position to turn down the last minute request of a friend who wants to impress a new man with her culinary abilities. As Carly hides in the kitchen quietly preparing the feast, a knock at the door is followed by shots and the couple are dead before they can get to the canapes.

Unseen by the killer, Carly tells police investigator Jack Brannigan that she witnessed the hungry lovers killed by a well-known television personality, “Professor Passion’ Chester Winnifield. But the smooth talking Winnifield has an alibi and it’s Carly who finds herself in hot water. Something tells Jack to believe Carly and he works tirelessly to protect and redeem the lovely young caterer.

Okay, so we open with our heroine Carly Westin, a caterer who is trying to get her business off the ground. As an introduction, Carly being interviewed on radio with ‘Big Bad Bob,’ a dreadful man who makes so many innuendos Carly’s way that the ‘wink wink’ face is very nearly permanent.

Shortly afterward, Carly struggles up the stairs to her apartment with a boatload of boxes. When two teen boys failed to leap to her bidding with her insipid, “Um… could you…? Could you um…?” she abruptly switches to a snarl and they reluctantly open the door for her. I think this is supposed to make us sympathise for poor Carly, but for me it makes her look inept.

Inside her apartment is her landlady and her neighbour, as well as a city official who is looking over her kitchen because she needs a license for commercial cooking. A license that is going to cost twelve hundred dollars, many more dollars than she has.

Now, I was distracted by how the official got to her place before Carly did, seeing as how the radio promotion only went on air possibly a couple hours ago and that’s how we’re led to assume he learned of her and her business, “Carly’s Creations”. No one moves that fast. Certainly not a city official. But ok, for the sake of story-telling short-hand , let’s pretend that it’s plausible. Right? Moving on.

Oh, and guys? We’re three minutes forty into the movie. Yeah.

Timely help arrives when a panicked friend calls in a favour to help her impress a date. Sophie is a professional water-burner as evidenced by the literally black saucepan. Sophie manages to bribe Carly into staying and helping her cook by offering to help pay for the commercial license. It’s a tricky dance between Sophie and Carly that evening – and aren’t those kitchens with the connecting doors just so handy – but Carly manages to remain hidden and Sophie’s date oblivious.

It’s all blown to hell when a famous TV personality Chester Winnifield (played by Corbin Bernsen) shows up, clearly obsessed with Sophie. He’s shown the door by her date Tobias and when everyone in the house takes a nice big breath of relief, Chester is back with a gun and kills the two lovers. He thinks about investigating the odd noise from the kitchen but decides not to.

Carly gives her statement to the police officer Jack Brannigan (da-da-da-daaaaaah!) our hero. He is as grumpy and rumpled as you could ever wish. When she returns home, the landlady and her neighbour are still there. Which has already weirded me out twice. Jack follows up in his questioning, and his Chief has Carly pegged dead to rights when she levels Jack with a look and tells him to keep his mind open. She might as well have said “Keep your trousers zipped, boyo.” She reiterates that as Chester Winnifield is prominent person they need something better than he said-she said.

 

The interrogations don’t go well and the mob outside manages to snare both Carly, her neighbour Elliot and Chester Winnifield where many stupid things are said despite Jack specifically telling them not to say a damn thing. Why the fuck would you get into a staring contest with a man you saw gun down two people in cold blood? Elliot MacGyvers Carly into the apartment building past a mob of press, through the attic, into Elliot’s apartment and from there to Carly’s place. When Carly checks her answering machine and people start cancelling orders left, right and centre (surprise, surprise!) along with a truly creepy threat. Elliot is a total sweetheart and clearly smitten with Carly. Is this guy supposed to be the hero? Nah, he’s a bit too soggy to be a romance hero.

Sweet Mother of Pearl, we’re only twenty minutes in. I need a drink.

Both Chester and Carly’s alibis check out, and Jack and his Chief concoct a way of trapping Chester. Elliot and Mrs K are in Carly’s apartment (again!) when a news bulletin announces that Chester has been arrested for double murder, all because his former lover (shown onscreen in a bikini and frighteningly big hair) dobbed him in as she was supposed to be his alibi.

Sweet! Except, we’re still only twenty five minutes in and I have no idea where the story is supposed to go from here. Hell, the hero has been onscreen for maybe five minutes total. Okay, grab the whiskey and keep going.

Carly gets dragged into the media shitstorm, has her talent, her sexuality and her morals all questioned. (The news bulletin also calls Carly a “saucy spinster” and a “cut rate caterer,” but she only takes exception to the second part.) Because this does strike a little too close to the truth of what many people go through, I got pissed. But a very awkward phone call from the cute detective (a little too late, Jack) informing her of the situation and sort of stumbling around flirting with her despite the serious snarl she had going on (impressive though it was) was actually kind of adorable. I love it when grown men shake in their boots as they try to talk to the girl they like.

The bail hearing goes pear-shaped, Winnifield is released and Big Bad Bob capitalises on Carly’s infamy as the Woman Who Saw. Requests for her catering go through the roof and everyone wants a piece of her, the competition for free catering goes ahead and the media shitstorm hits category five. When adorkable Detective Brannigan escorts Carly home and they avoid another mob via attic into Elliot’s apartment, they find that Carly’s apartment has been broken into, the upshot being that witness protection is suggested. That escalated fast. Carly, being stubborn, refuses to leave town and change her name. So the detective is assigned as her bodyguard instead. Oh goody! We’re getting to the good stuff!

Jack demonstrates how absurdly easy it is to get into her place – further demonstrated by her sister mysteriously appearing in her bathroom with facial mask and wet hair in a towel after leaving her husband. Because all women do that. She freaks out because there is a man with a gun pointed at her (understandable), Mrs K and her son bust in because they saw someone suspicious and then Elliot charges in worried about something Winnifield has been saying on air. No, really, how fucking easy is it to get into the flat? I think the detective was reasonable enough at this point to suggest that maybe – just maybe – it would be better to protect her if people couldn’t just walk in when they wanted to. Carly then goes from what is supposed to be charmingly stubborn to plain pig-headed by insisting that these people are no harm to her. And she somehow gets her way? Because she pouts?!? Fucksake.

There’s a couple of farcical scenes wherein Carly tries to keep her business afloat and Jack tries to keep her arse covered. She damn near pimps the poor bastard out at one event, where he spends five minutes alone with a bunch of drunk women and gets back to the kitchen with his shirt hanging off him in strategic places.

Then somehow the kitchen catches fire. These two things may or may not be related. It might have read better, but on screen it’s just shambolic. I’m not kidding. She actually starts unbuttoning him when he is very clearly and loudly saying ‘No’. If the roles were reversed, and a man was trying to get a woman to show a bit more skin we’d all be foaming at the mouth, and so this made me distinctly uncomfortable. Sexism in any way, shape or form does not turn me on.

“I’m a struggling businesswoman trying to make my way in a cruel world, Jack”. Actual quote. With a pout. And who the hell wears heels when cooking for a corporate event?

More threatening mail appears, and it seems that everyone has a key to Carly’s mailbox except the detective. Where are this woman’s survival instincts? At what point will she start to take this stuff seriously? So far, a man whom she has witnessed murdering two people in front of her, knows her appearance, her name, where she lives and what she does for a living and … all of this is just an inconvenience??? Good grief, just pass me the bottle would you?

Oh, look, we’ve just passed forty-seven minutes.

Elliot, the neighbour, is arrested, as he has ties to Chester in that he took relationship confidence courses from him. Elliot nails Jack with the perceptive little observance that perhaps Jack is so quick to judge because he wants Carly for himself and Elliot is in the way.

Quick little bugger, isn’t he?

Carly caters for a children’s party, during which Carly is terrorised by a child with a dead rat even after she changes the snotty dad’s instructions from some fancy schmancy food I’m not sure I can pronounce to hot dogs and burgers. These kids are nine. I’m beginning to believe that Carly has zero affinity with persons shorter than four feet. And heels? Again?

Jack, who is ‘great with kids’, threatens them with Juvenile hall, which is exactly what I would like to do and then… oh the First Kiss! THE FIRST KISS, YOU GUYS. I really wanted to be flat against the kitchen bench and ‘hot damn!’ not ‘aww!’. But ‘aw’ I did, as it was a beautiful, sweet first kiss…

… interrupted by Fancy Pants Dad the Third.

Fancy Pants Dad takes a swing at Jack, who refuses to apologise to Brat Child and hits the cabinet instead. Serves the stuck up ponce right, says I.

After disaster part two, they buddy each other up having Real Conversations which is possibly the most real part of the film. After, another kiss – one that answers my wish for “Hot damn!”

They get back to her place (does he not have a place of his own?) and finally get around to making luuuuuuuuurve. (That’s at minute fifty-six for those keeping track). There’s some odd piano-and-flute music as her bra stays on and they only get as far as his singlet, before the sister, Alma’s, husband is banging on the door and whining. Does everyone know where this woman lives? But hey, she remembered to lock the front door this time! And when Jack reacts to this as a threat, and Carly stumbles out after him, half dressed, poor Elliot is heartbroken.

Another creepy-as-fuck phone call and the mood is officially killed. Jack promply takes himself off the case and – where is Carly while he’s reporting to his Chief? Isn’t he supposed to be… Nevermind. Jack has feelings, big gushy feelings that are affecting his performance to which his Chief beautifully replies, “I see. And which aspect of your performance is it affecting?”

I did not snort ginger beer out of my nose at that corker, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

He lists the ways things have gone wrong, starting with the strip-tease at the ladies function and the Chief, she just looks amused, like this is hilarious, but she’s trying her best to keep a straight face.

Cue! More! Media Slandering! Carly has a little breakdown after Alma and her husband leave. Her sister, I should mention, actually tells Carly that she is so stubborn! Mate, when even the other fictional characters are commenting on it, that makes it true. Jack wants her to reconsider witness protection, which she refuses and I start to believe that Carly has the survival instincts of a suicidal lemming.

There’s one last big party, a murder mystery themed dinner, that Carly and Jack take part in. And she’s dressed as a french maid. Of course. And fucking heels again. What sort of career caterer are you?!? There’s a screw up because Jack doesn’t know shit about butlering, and the pretend gunshot is a real gunshot and it’s aimed where Carly was standing split seconds before the lights go out.

She’s alive because Jack got his feet tangled up. Jack does his thing, checking the house, and Carly, who should have stayed in the dining room with the other guests where it was safest, follows Jack into the house. Across hardwood floors. In her bloody heels. Carly, at this point, has done the equivalent of a gothic heroine investigating the creepy noise in her nightgown. Chester Winnifield reveals himself as the killer, masquerading as one of the guests (how?) and all the participants think it’s all part of some play-acting. Again, a scene that aimed for comedy and might have managed on the page but fails miserably on screen.

The whole thing cuts to Carly in her dressing gown, in her apartment. We missed the arrest scene! The moods between them have switched, again, and it’s Jack who’s all mushy, Carly’s the one who has gone a bit cool. She wants to be alone and Jack takes himself off, but when he closes the door behind him, he just waits in the hall. Until he hears Carly bolt and slide-lock behind him. Then he leaves. Awwww!

I dunno about anyone else, but I would prefer that kind of courtesy from a bloke over a bouquet of roses any day. And I really like roses. It just struck me a very sweet and completely within character for Jack.

It occurred to me that we’re only an hour and ten into the movie – so what now? It’s like getting to the crux of a story, everything’s wrapped up, no loose ends … and there’s at least two more chapters to go. Now what?

Carly gets a creepy phone call in the middle of the night, that’s what! I must credit her with a tiny bit of common sense: she calls Jack as soon as she hangs up on creepy silent phone caller. But only a tiny bit of sense because why wouldn’t she mention the bizarre music echoing through the apartment and the hang up call? No, just a breezy ‘hey, can you call me when you have a minute?” at what? Midnight? Jack misses it because his mates have taken him out for a celebratory beer and steak dinner. Elliot drops by looking all sweet and earnest and gosh-darn-aren’t-I-adorable? Carly has him in for a cup of tea and Elliot, in his floundering ways asks Carly out. Sort of.

Ding-ding-ding! Carly there is an arsehole in the house! Alert! Alert!

The whole set up for this bit of a scene is beautifully subtle. Instead of asking her to his place for tea, he asks her to make him some tea. And their date, that he proposes is for them to drive up the coast, for them to buy lobsters and for her to cook them. Now, while Carly may be a caterer, there is no need to insist she cook in what should be a nice relaxing time for them both. Not cool, man. Not cool at all.

But I’m not sure what pisses Elliot off the most, the fact that he asks her out and is shot down by Carly, or the fact that she wasn’t really listening to him the whole time he was talking. She’s going on about bank managers and loans and what not. Which is something I’m not sure about. Why does she need the loans and the bank managers when business has been so surprisingly good lately? As crude as he was, Big Bad Bob had it right: ‘Everyone wants the celebrity chef that everyone is talking about’. She landed some sweet gigs, and that last one was proclaimed the best one ever, so why is she so down about cash?

Nevermind.

The point is, Elliot loses his shit and chloroforms Carly (how the fuck did he get chloroform?) takes her up to the attic and prepares to romance her. Whilst she’s tied to a chaise. Cos we all know that works. Jack gets his message from Carly (on that gigantic brick-like mobile phone!) and the look on his face is pure ‘Did she just booty call me?!’

 

He tries to ring her back but, since Elliot has gone by way of the mad hatter, there is of course, no answer. Jack, unlike Chester at the beginning of this fricken thing, knows something hinkey is up and goes to investigate, finds the door open and the creepy piano music floating down from the attic. Elliot is so damned creepy it gave me goosebumps, but Carly does a good job in diffusing the situation, I was actually impressed. She nearly has him right where she needs him, when Jack pops up through the hatch and a big-ish fight scene. Not a Hollywood choreography scene, just two guys grappling on the ground not making a lot of noise. Which is slightly scarier and considerably more realistic than any Hollywood fights.

We don’t actually see Elliot hauled away in cuffs, but it’s implied. That’s the second time that’s happened in this movie and dammit I want that scene.

We’re back in Carly’s apartment after the fact (again, drat it) and Mrs K, the imperious little old landlady, practically bullies Jack and Carly together after they nearly botch everything right at the end in what is actually my favourite scene. It’s so awkward and stilted between them, Mrs K watches Jack leave, tells Carly that she’s in love with him and dashes off after Jack scolding him for leaving the scene of a crime. When there is no crime evident, she creates one by ordering her son to kick down Carly’s door. Mrs K is tops and easily my favourite. Once Mrs K’s evil deeds are done for the day, Carly and Jack finally have their moment. Finally!

 

After a brief, intense kiss that was a little weird to watch frankly – I kept wondering if they’d clashed teeth, or if someone had bitten their own lip. With the debris littering the floor – lots of food play is hinted at – we come across our couple … dressed, in bed. Whut? Carly teases Jack and returns wearing only her apron, hiding a can of whipped cream behind her back annnnnd she kicks the door closed.

Dammit! Seriously? All that buildup and all I get is a love scene literally behind a closed door. Not fair!

This gets an F+: points have been deducted for the amount of whiskey necessary to consume while watching this, for the fact that Sophie and Tobias (remember them?) are nothing but a footnote to the story, for Carly’s inability to rub two brain cells together and those goddamned shoes!