Jam-packed with heaving bosoms, wild stallions, rabid jealousy, machismo posturing and histrionic melodrama, Heartache  could very well win AVN's Barbara Cartland Award for "Ideal Couples Feature," if such an animal existed. Here's a video you can proudly display in the window of your store, and half the female population of your town would be creaming their tummy-tucking pantyhose just to get a peek at what romantic eroticism lay unspooled within its box.

Conversely, your average raincoater is going to treat the vid like a case of dripping gonorrhea -- and he wouldn't be wrong for doing so. Heartache isn't a tape to beat off to, it's an after-dinner mint to get laid with. From the moment that a hitchhiking stranger (Tice Bune) steps into a small mexican town looking for work, we know that (A) a rich caballero (i.e. Herschel Savage) is apt to have both a beautiful daughter and a dazzling new wife ... and finally (C) mother and daughter get along like Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton. The only real question is, how will Tice end up pissing off his hot-tempered employer? Take up with the slutty daughter (Stephanie Swift) or the horny stepmother (Missy)?

A winning Bingo number and a free pass to Screenwriting 101 if you chose Missy. Exactly why Tice falls for her is a stickier (pun intended) issue. Perhaps it's the way the sun hits her eyes... or perhaps it's the way she rides around on her steed in extended, production value-raising montages. Whatever the case may be, Tice and his newfound ladylove don't manage to play hide the grande chili pepper until after a picturesque threeway with Swift, Daniels and Hatcher... or a picturesque one-on-one with Missy and Savage... or a picturesque dubiously-motivated orgy with just about everyone else.

"Finally," you sigh, "we're getting down to sex!" (Well, it's picturesque, did we mention that?) As far as the heat goes, the aforementioned opening number runs a close second to a somewhat nastier -- and properly motivated -- scene where Savage punishes Missy for her indiscretions by treating her to a front-row-center seat as he smuggles his bone up the ass of the local prostitute, Liza Harper. For an interesting finale, Savage greases his own palm with spoo and makes Liza lick it up. Tice receives a nice zetz in the head from director/actor Armstrong for what is either his punishment as the philandering stranger, or his cigar-store-Indian style directing here -- it's difficult to tell. On the other hand, Savage is quite good as the caballero, and for maintaining a decent Spanish accent he surely deserves a Best Actor pre-nom.

Technically, the lighting/videography, editing and music (Ron Vogel/Jake Jacobs, SCSi Post, Schizolpolis) compliment each other like ambassadors at a United Nations function. Pre-noms all around.