And this turns into a probing of Sam's, which is soiled by a homicide/suicide that left his lover and her husband dead. Sam grew apathetic out of that experience; of course, Crystal rekindles his inner fire. I appreciated the metaphorical value of her hammy last name ("Ball"), how it contributes to this aspect of the story: Sam sees his future in her. It's also the perfect femme fatale alias; the movie won me over, to a point, with such classical shamelessness. Director Darrell James Roodt, a long way from his South African musical Sarafina!, doesn't pretend he's making something he's not.

Or does he? Second Skin seems like soft-porn on the surface. The distributors (Artisan and Canada's Alliance Releasing) lead expectations, what with Henstridge in a bathtub on the video box, that Roodt, who liberally employs those icy colours of Cinemax flicks and dresses Henstridge in a variety of tight outfits, all but follows through on. It's a shame that some may overlook the film's quirky strengths because it aims to tease: MacFadyen (Braveheart's Robert the Bruce) suggests a husky Johnny Depp; Peter Fonda adds another singular villain to his repertoire; etc.

I also got silly over the final shot, a heartless denouement right out of James M. Cain or even Patricia Highsmith. Sure, Second Skin is convoluted trash (more plot twists than actual plot are crammed into its 90-minute running time), but its hard-boiled voice is too earnest to dismiss, and I recommend the film inasmuch as one can dime-store fiction/straight-to-video rabble. If portable DVD players ever replace the paperback, Second Skin has "beach read" potential.

Artisan's sparse disc presents the film three ways (1.85:1 letterbox, 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, and the rarely used pan-and-scan on the fly, which blows up the image to 1.33:1 fullscreen with disregard for side information) and allows you the viewer to toggle between them. In either incarnation, the transfer looks nice, if a hair soft. The Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks (English and French) that accompany it imply TV movie audio "opened up" but lacking in nuance. (Yes, I'm also flabbergasted that Artisan's Second Skin received the six-channel treatment while their Dune remake did not--on Region 1 DVD, at least.) The biggest problem, and I don't know whether this is a mastering defect or the fault of my Pioneer player, is that dialogue is about a half-second out-of-synch with lip movements, causing everybody's voices to sound ADR'd. Extras: cast/crew bios and a trailer whose "redband" status is misleading.-Bill Chambers