Latex Movie Review: Barb Wire

Barb Wire is usually lumped in on lists of all-time worst movies. That is a reputation it does not deserve. A typical post apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, it was better than most movies found in this sub genre. Based on a comic book that had a limited run at Dark Horse Comics, it was basically developed for Pamela Anderson with the idea of launching her movie career. Pamela had gone from Playboy Playmate to Tool Time Girl on Tim Allen's Home Improvement to lifeguard on Baywatch to one of media's most popular female celebrities in the space of five years. Looking to capitalize on that fame the rights to the Barb Wire comic book were bought, and an adaption was made that ignored most of what was in the comic book. Instead screenwriters Ilene Chaiken and Chuck Pfarrer chose to write a script that was a remake of Casablanca, only with a lot of gunfights and explosions. While the movie's plot is not spectacular, it is never the less credible. The dialog while nowhere in the same league as Casablanca is perfectly competent. While Anderson's acting was in no way Oscar worthy, it was no worse than that of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In short, for an action/adventure Barb Wire ranked as above average within it's genre. So why so many bad reviews. Most likely because critics were gunning for Pamela Anderson the second the production of this movie was announced. And it did not help that the movie was promoted a remake of the classic Casablanca.

Pamela stars as the title character. Set a couple of decades into the future, the United States has been devastated by a civil war between a fascist group called The Congressionals and freedom fighters. Barb lives with her blind brother Charlie in a place called Steel Harbor, the only city not yet under Congressional control. There she is the owner/manager of a nightclub called "The Hammerhead". The club seems to lose rather than make money, so to pay the bills Barb moonlights as a gun for hire and bounty hunter. It helps that the police force in Steel Harbor are all corrupt, so Barb gets away with multiple homicides during her missions. Eventually she ends up helping a group of rebels to smuggle a wanted fugitive onto a plane going to Canada and ends up fighting the Congressional Gestapo who has tracked the fugitive to the city, all which leads to the expected violent shootout/car chase at the end of the movie. Like I said, Barbed Wire is by no means a great film. If you are going to compare it with Casablanca then it will wind up looking like garbage. But as for a sci-fi action movie Barb Wire is just as good as the average Arnold Schwarzenegger flick.

THE SCENE:
You do not have to wait long to get to the best scene. Only 1 minute into the film Pamela, who is undercover as a stripper, walks onto the stage wearing a tight black latex gown. While the opening credits roll someone off stage soaks her with a fire hose while she dances around. The top of the gown comes loose and her breasts are fully exposed. The sequence is edited together as a montage with shots that range from closeups to long shots to even a few shots of Pamela hanging from a trapeze while being blasted with water. Off stage a heckler yells degrading things at Pamela, demanding that she completely remove her dress. When he calls her baby, the one thing her character Barb Wire hates to be called, she removes one of her high heel shoes and hurls it like a dart right into the heckler's forehead, after which she walks off the stage. The entire scene lasts the length of Gun's cover version of the song "Word Up", about 4 and a half minutes. For most of the movie the Barb Wire character wears the same black outfit, a leather bustier, knee high leather boots, leggings that vary from black to tan, black satin opera gloves and choker. This is usually accompanied by a leather coat. You first see the outfit at 19 minutes, again at 21 minutes when she is under cover as a hooker, 34 minutes after changing out of a black dress, and once again at 1 hour 6 minutes. At 37 minutes she wears a black leather pants and leather bra top combo. At 50 minutes she wears a black leather shirt top with matching satin opera gloves and unidentified black pants ( possibly leather ). And at 1 hour 13 minutes she wears a black leather laced up top that exposes a lot of cleavage with black leather pants and eventually a leather jacket. This outfit she wears for the remainder of the film. Two other outfits worth possibly mentioning are a dress she wears at 6 minutes that is possibly leather, but as the scenes take place in the dark I can not tell for sure. And at 36 minutes you can partially see a snake print top that seems to expose the breasts, but since you only see her in close up the rest of the outfit cuts off from just above the shoulders down. Another angle of her in the same outfit but walking away in the shadows, but you can tell it is accompanied by black leather pants. It should also be mentioned that the group Die Cheerleader makes a cameo as a bar band, the female lead singer wearing a tight black mini dress which is partially vinyl and with decorative chains. You only see brief flashes of the outfit, but it can be found at 14 minutes and again at 30 minutes. Other bar patrons can also be seen wearing various latex and leather outfits, but are just background characters who are only on screen for a split second each.