Retro Movie Review: TO THE LIMIT

In the mood to watch a bad film I could laugh at, I chose To the Limit (1995), starring 1993 Playboy Playmate of the Year (and 1995 Razzie™ Award winner) Anna Nicole Smith, confident I knew how exploitative the movie would be. Boy, was I naive.

We meet ex-CIA agent Colette Dubois (Anna) while she indulges in a sensual bath. We know it's sensual because she moans. The whole time. Then she emerges and dresses for the wedding of war veteran and goodfella Frankie DaVinci (co-producer and co-writer Joey Travolta, older brother of John). But boyfriend China Smith (Michael Nouri) suddenly wants to have sex, so the dress comes off again, and we're treated to an extended scene of Colette moaning and writhing.

You may be wondering what this flick is about, and if I ever find out I'll let you know. Okay, this bald guy in fatigue pants and dog tags named Jameson (Jack Bannon, Travolta's brother-in-law), who seems to think he's the poor man's Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, sends his masked operatives to try to kill Frankie DaVinci because...just because, I guess. And it turns out China gave Colette a shiny gold CD that incriminates Jameson.

Despite the convoluted plot, there are long stretches where nothing of consequence happens. The pace isn't helped by Anna Nicole, whose reaction time is glacial. Seriously, I've seen child actors who came across more naturally.

Everything she says belies the fact that she's ex-CIA. She tries to distract from this through lots of action: shooting multiple people while barely looking, driving a police car backward and crashing into a helicopter, even throwing a compact disc so it buries itself in a man's skull. Really.

Oh, and she gets naked. A lot. When she changes her shirt, we discover this uber-buxom blonde wears no bra. In the middle of the movie, she suddenly takes a long, inexplicably sensual shower during which she masturbates with the shower nozzle. And there's even an icky sex scene with balding, gray-bearded Frankie.

The movie often felt like it was actually made up of two separate films that had been spliced together without much of an attempt to connect them. After it (mercifully) ended, I did some googling and found out why. To the Limit is a sequel to 1992's DaVinci's War, from the same director (Raymond Martino), starring Travolta, Nouri, and others as the same characters. Would To the Limit have made more sense if I'd seen DaVinci's War first?

Naaahh.

Rated R for adult language, nudity, violence against good taste, and defying the laws of physics.

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