Goin' Down Slow Review

Reviewed by Corey Thomas  on  8/10/2005

"Goin' Down Slow", John Leslie's second directorial effort after "Nightshift Nurses" is a very different kind of adult film. It has a huge emphasis on storyline and style, rather than sex, which at times makes some of the sexual scenarios seem pointless or uninteresting. The plot itself is amazing: Ironic, full of twists and turns, and unpredictable. It is the porn equivalent of a Hitchcock movie.

Ona Z plays a lonely woman who likes to watch her neighbor Ellen's (Shanna McCullough) daily trysts with lover George Anton (John Leslie). Ona's in love with George and thinks that he should be hers. Ellen is married to Martin (Robert Bullock), an advice columnist who goes under the name "Madame Rona". George is Martin's boss. Kathleen Gentry plays Martin's secretary and Joey Silvera plays a photography. Later, when a murder is committed, all of these characters come into play. What happens, I will not say, but I will say that John Leslie makes no easy assumptions.

There are a fair amount of sex scenes, but none of them are very long or memorable. If anything, it appears that Leslie was trying to make a legitimate movie here, and was just throwing in sex scenes so it could still be classified as "adult". The only thing I found to be fairly erotic in the movie at all was a handjob scene between Dana Lynn and Joey Silvera (that girl really knew how to get a grip on things!) and a hottub scene between Lynn and Leslie. Several scenes, like a fantasy scene between Kathleen Gentry, Peter North, and Tom Byron, seem to be in there just for contract reasons.

I don't recommend this movie to someone who just wants to see sex. There's other movies for that. I think this is a great couples movie, or for somebody who wants to see a different, more intelligent, type of adult movie. The actors do a very good job here, especially Robert Bullock, Shanna McCullough, and John Leslie. This is one of only a few movies Leslie directed that he appears in as well, so it's interesting in that aspect, as well.

The audio and video are both very good on this one, as well as the cinematography in general. Leslie and cinematographer Jack Remy definitely have had inspiration from "film noir" and not just porn. The only real disappointment, as with most of Leslie's VCA titles, is the extras. What we get here, is a cast listing (an inaccurate one, at that), a photo gallery, a listing of some other VCA titles available, and a website promo. I can't imagine how informative a John Leslie commentary track or even a few interviews could've been on a classic like this, but Leslie is a very private guy and I guess he just likes his movies to stand on their own. I know that this one does.