Random Encounter Movie Review

Showgirls was a mess from start to finish, but anyone who spent years enjoying Elizabeth Berkley as intellectual feminist Jessie Spano opposite Mario Lopez as A.J. Slater isn't going to give up on her after one terrible movie. (Who'd give up on Kyle MacLachlan or Gina Gershon or Robert Davi or director Paul Verhoeven?) Random Encounter is a much more low-key and far less-hyped affair, a Canadian indie by Doug Jackson with plot holes (by Matt Dorff) the size of the Grand Canyon, plus a yucky co-star. Berkley plays Alicia, an up-and-coming professional woman who loves her parents and is fiercely loyal to her business mentor. She meets a guy with too many teeth at a company party and goes to bed with him! A mistake, naturally. Soon, Alicia is embroiled in a murder and is linked to the one-night stand by her inexplicable attraction to him, as well as a more believable sense of self-preservation. Berkley, who did well in small roles in First Wives Club and The Real Blonde, does her sincere best in the leading role, but her seedy nemesis, whose performance is all over the map, fails to supply crucial sizzle and support. I once read that there's nothing as irrelevant as the score at half time; Berkley's only in her 20s, so I hope she finds a project that does her career and her talent (which she does have) some good by the 21st century. Update: Berkley's Saturday morning colleagues are all still gainfully employed, although Screech and Mr. Belding (Dustin Diamond and Dennis Haskins) received their pink slips in 1998 after many years at Bayside High School. Zack Morris (Mark Paul Gosselaar), Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), and Slater (Lopez) went on to prime time television (Hyperion Bay, Beverly Hills 90210, and Pacific Blue) and Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhees) continued in daytime television and commercials.

1998 100m/C CA Elizabeth Berkley, Joel Wyner, Frank Schorpion, Barry Flatman, Mark Walker, Ellen David, Susan Glover, Frank Fontaine; D: Douglas Jackson; W: Matt Dorff; C: Georges Archambault; M: Daniel Scott. VHS