Dirty Hairy (All Worlds) Review

Reviewed by Joe Shaver  on  8/9/2002

Anyone for bear? If so, then this might be the flick for you. The casting requisite seems to be “have body hair you’re in.” Mind you I like bears. As long as they are young, slim or muscular, and good-looking. When they are old, grizzled, and weigh over 300 pounds they don’t inspire me. Luckily it’s the former here and not the latter.

The plot is very silly and undeveloped. It is supposed to be a take-off on film noir with Thomas Lloyd as a private eye hired to find someone called Dirty Hairy who is blackmailing a senator. The dialogue sounds as though it was translated into Sanskrit and then turned back into English. The humor is not humorous. The acting, which purports to be camp, is just bad. It was a great idea, but unfortunately director Donner had neither the wit nor the imagination to carry it off.

Thomas Lloyd—one of my favorite actors—who gave a virtuosos performance in Animus, is especially disappointing. Overacting in the dialogue scenes and—what is worse—mugging in the sex scenes. Nothing takes the heat out of sex like someone pretending to be Jerry Lewis.

Lloyd’s assistant is newcomer Zach Warner. Zach has a pale white, somewhat flabby bod, making him resemble the Pillsbury Dough Boy that has rolled in cat hair. It is the kind of body that one has whose only exercise is going from the sofa to the bed. Although he is certainly not one to stimulate erotic fantasy, it must be admitted he is rather cute and wouldn’t be sent home on a lonely night. Zach is the luckiest person in this flick, having sex both with Lloyd and with a gorgeous, foreign muscle hunk that All World’s has not bothered to identify. (None of the cast is identified except for Lloyd and Warner. You either have to know actors like Thomas Bond or Dean Maxwell or you’re out of luck.)

There are some hot guys in this flick. Maxwell is as pale as Warner, but he is taut and sexy as Hell. The gym bunny is another hunk to get the juices flowing. But the sex is, for the most part, mundane. With a bit of work this could have been a classic. Still, if you’re out for bear, you could do worse.