Synopsis: Love Latex Larceny

A dangerously deviant ride that will leave you begging for more!

Latex and larceny meet in this sexy thriller about Alberta (Leelee Sobieski, Eyes Wide Shut), a small-town screw-up who escapes to Canada only to move in with a beautiful but tough dominatrix. Secretly taking on her roommate’s identity, Alberta gets caught between half a million stolen dollars and the brutal thugs who want it back. Starring Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) as the ultimate S&M mistress, Walk All Over Me is a dangerous deviant ride that will leave you begging for more.

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Walk All Over Me 7.0

eyelights: Leelee Sobieski.
eyesores: Leelee Sobieski’s character.

“Don’t give them a choice.”

I’m really not much of a fetishist. In fact, though I like the clothing, which I often find sexy, the rest of it leaves me pretty indifferent. But there’s just something about a movie starring Leelee Sobieski in fetish gear.

Hmmm… I wonder what?

‘Walk All Over Me’ is such a movie. Released in 2007, the Canadian indie film follows Alberta from the truck stop she works in to Vancouver, escaping the trouble that she’s gotten herself into only to get into more of it.

Once in Vancouver, she gets in touch with her former babysitter, Celene, who is at first reticent to let her back into her life now that she’s got a good thing going for herself; she remembers how much trouble Alberta was.

Celene doesn’t want trouble.

But she allows Alberta to stay at her place for two weeks while she gets set up. Within days, however, Alberta has gotten involved with some bad people who track her down to Celene’s place. Alberta and Celene are in deep.

Though ‘Walk All Over Me’ may sound like a basic crime drama, the big twist is that Alberta soon discovers that Celene, an aspiring actress, has made a name for herself as a dominatrix, making 300$ an hour for her services.

Alberta becomes intrigued, starts to wear Celene’s gear and, after causing a mishap that requires quick money, decides to pose as Celeste for Paul, a new client. He accidentally drags her into his troubles with some hoods.

The whole bondage and domination theme is really just incidental, and doesn’t have much to do with the plot – which is probably why I enjoy the picture to some degree: it doesn’t go too deep into the culture and practices.

In some ways, it’s almost as though a few practitioners decide to get together to fund a movie to show off their BDSM collection; there’s no way an indie film could afford all of Celene’s fetish gear and her client’s dungeon.

In any event, the picture works as a whole, though it’s small in scope and there’s nothing especially novel about the plot: the script holds up, the whole cast is very good, the production suits the picture’s needs, …etc.

My main problem is with the Leelee Sobieski’s character, Alberta.

Though Sobieski is in top form and is the perfect (and probably only) choice for the part, Alberta is impossible to redeem: she not only inadvertently causes chaos, she also makes the wrong decisions, exacerbating things.

And it’s not just ’cause she’s naive: she is frequently told what she should and should not do (by her co-workers, by Celene, …etc.) and always ends up doing exactly what they warn her against. She’s untrustworthy.

In fact, she’s such an element of chaos that I can’t really believe that Celene didn’t expel her from her life the moment that the issues started popping up. I certainly would have: get your act in gear or get the !@#$ out!

Alberta is an irresponsible loser.

And it made impossible for me to sympathize with her.

Still, I really savoured every moment that Sobieski was in some sort of fetish gear, ’cause she looks amazing in it, towering over everyone with her 5’10” frame propped up in high heels. So it weakened my dislike of Alberta some.

Again, the problem is with the character, as written, not with Sobieski, who imbues Alberta with the correct amount of uncertainty and cluelessness, ending each sentence in a question and stumbling through everything.

The rest of the cast is equally excellent: Tricia Helfer bring a touch of Jane Fonda to the role of Celene and is a total bad-@$$, while Lothaire Bluteau is appropriately creepy as René, the club owner stalking Paul.

Paul is the least credible of the lot, played as a sort of geek by Jacob Tierney though he’s a criminal. But Michael Adamthwaite and Michael Eklund are appropriately brutal yet hilarious as René’s idiot henchmen.

Though it’s sinister in tone, the picture is lightened up by a number of amusing elements, starting with the dynamics between Celene and Spencer, Alberta and the security guard at work, and then René’s two dummies.

But it’s not enough to make it fun: ‘Walk All Over Me’ doesn’t quite strike the right balance between humour and danger for it be quirky fun. It almost succeeds, but something doesn’t quite come together as it should have.

And Alberta doesn’t help matters any.

Story: 7.0
Acting: 7.5
Production: 7.0

Nudity: 2.0
Sexiness: 2.0
Explicitness: 2.0

Date of viewing: January 28, 2017