Emily Reed (Carré Otis) is a Midwestern girl hired into a law firm. Her boss Claudia Dennis (Jacqueline Bisset) brings her and her language skills to Rio to close a property deal. The seller is stalling and Dennis takes off to chase him down in Buenos Aires. Reed takes over her dinner with wealthy James Wheeler (Mickey Rourke). Emily is soon taken in by exotic sexualized Brazil and the mysterious Wheeler.

Zalman King was the ruler of late-night TV soft porn and big screen overwrought erotica during a small slice of time. The production is luscious. Rourke is perfectly creepy and alluring. Otis is a blank. She is a deer caught in the headlines. In some ways, that performance works but she is never believable as a Midwestern girl. There is good production value for a softcore porn but this is not a good movie.

The first time Carrie Otis appears on screen, she is a newly minted international lawyer at a job interview. She's breathless, anxious, and sounds fake. I thought she was doing the character, but in reality that was it. That's all she has for the entire movie. And Mickey Rourke? Did someone whisper to him that he was the sexiest man alive, or what? He does his best with Feminine Fantasy Number One, the mysterious, masculine, empathic self-made man who is filthy rich, but he simply can't pull it off without a French accent. Jacqueline Bisset's character should carry a sign around her neck -- "Bitch." There's not much point in going on about the plot, something out of a shoebox, which provides at least some material for a travelogue, though there have been better attempts to capture Rio ("Black Orpheus," eg.). The story gives Rourke a hang up. He can't stand to be touched -- let alone the other thing. But, no fear, Otis overcomes his inhibitions by the power of her pulchritude so we can end with a nearly explicit coupling. He turns out to be robustly masculine after all. Is that what "wild orchid" means? I mean, is it some kind of terribly mangled PUN?

Here are some examples of the dialog. "Sometimes we all have to lose ourselves a little in order to find ourselves." And Otis: "I'm sorry," to which Rourke replies, "It's not you -- it's me." A sex scene dissolves into shots of the morning surf rolling in.

Otis does in fact have one thing going for her, a slight lisp, in addition to her strong and attractive face and her robust figure. Rourke, though some sort of cryptohypnotism, has talked a bickering German couple into coupling in the back of a stretch limo while he and Otis watch. "Tell me what you see?" Rourke asks her. "I thee two people having thexth." There isn't anything much except thexth behind this excuse to cash in on the profits of Rourke's previous soft-core movie with Kim Basinger, and maybe take along some of the nut from "Emanuelle," another story about a rich man introducing a sexy but deprived young woman into the glories of debauchery. It's fun watching someone penetrate the mystique, but as the sociologist Erving Goffman once observed, often the real secret behind the mystery is that there is no secret at all. Maybe that's why masks are so commonly seen in this film.

But this is a feminine fantasy, co-written by a woman, and so instead of bikini-clad young blond girl leaping in slow motion to bat the volleyball, we have Speedo-clad young men leaping in slow motion to bat the volleyball. I prefer the girls but both images are pretty banal.

This is a beautiful looking Movie with sumptuous colors and a lot of Fandango. Everyone is dressed to the 9 and 1/2's. It can't help but be appealing on the surface and reminds one of Magazine ads or upscale Feminine advertising found in Vogue or some other slickness.

The soundtrack is infectious as much as the "scenery" both animate and inanimate and the Actors are equal in the eye-candy department. But, unfortunately it all goes from there in a downward spiral of very vapid dialog and not much else to help it rise from the Erotica that is its central conceit.

It is sensuous enough, if that's your cup of carnality. It is never lewd, just softly explicit and not at all shy about its pre-late-night-cable nudity and sexual activity. There is kind of a back story of inhibition and hang-ups, Lawyer shenanigans and Rich Folks wheeling and dealings. But that all takes a backseat in the this Limo driven, Pretty People, decadence of fun in the sun.

Overall it is very pleasant to look at and is easy on the ears, when there is no dialog, so it is not the embarrassment many Critics make out. It is a kind of interesting, voyeuristic peek at the Jet Set. We see that with all their wealth and free living, there is as much or more Neurosis there as anywhere. It is just more colorful.