Uli Edel directs Madonna, Willem Dafoe and Joe Mantegna in this erotic courtroom thriller where a lawyer must defend a sexy lady who is accused of killing a millionaire with her rumpy pumpy.

It seemed every movie Madonna made got a knee jerk kicking. And while there are very few classics, not all of them deserve their instantly stinky reputation. Sharon Stone went through the same critical grinder post-Basic Instinct. And I wouldn’t want to live in a world without Sliver and The Quick And The Dead. Nineties movie reviewers seemed pretty reactionary – female stars who traded in explicit sex acts on screen were met with a predictable, blinkered misogyny. And that brings us to Body Of Evidence. A more cartoonish Basic Instinct that takes the femme fatale mystery in front of a judge, has extreme and sustained simulated sex and looks consistently beautiful. There’s more kink than Verhoeven’s masterwork and far more flesh on show. Madonna is very game in an uninhibited performance. Her noir throwback costuming is on point and when it comes off you’d struggle to say the footage isn’t arousing. Sure, I’ll admit the plot is pulp hokum and the ending has been disappointingly and obviously reshot to conform to conservative Hollywood mores… yet this has a tip top cast, playing a trashy hook straight faced and delivering the sexy goods. Low bar but Body of Evidence actually proves one of the best examples of its short-lived sub-genre and deserves a kinder set of eyes on rediscovery. It delivers.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Who’s That Girl (1987)

My wife and I do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/