To watch George Segal's career – the George Segal of King Rat, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, Fun With Dick And Jane – flush itself down the toilet with derivative turds such as Deep Down is both saddening and funny. Saddening, because the Oscar winner is obviously slumming; funny because his performance could cop an honorary "Cameron Mitchell-style over-the-top hysteria Award", if ever such one existed.

Hair-trigger psychopath Segal is just as prone to sending a slug through someone's temple whether they're talking with their mouth full or oogling his wife (Tanya Roberts, looking absolutely superb). Roberts, trapped and miserable in he relationship, enlists the aid of a new tenant in her apartment – youthful Kristopher Tabori – to get her out of the mess. (Why she just can't hop on a bus is never quite explained). Baby-faced Tabori, who's playing 21 but looks 13, winds up in the sack with Roberts in a few scenes which almost border on kiddie porn. Robers, who has lost none of her physical appeal since capering around in a stinky leopard loincloth as Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle over a decade ago, bares it all, and often. (If I were a horny teenager I'd be jerking off tot his stuff for years.) She almost makes the viewing experience palatable.

The plot is a meandering mess which frequently halts to a dead stop for flashbacks of Tabori and his ex-girlfriend making gratuitous but delicious lovemaking (the model is really cute) as well as drunken soliloquies on the nature of death, privacy and whatever else happens to be on the mind of the cast. If this tripe was actually scripted the blame still falls on writer/director Travers, who has neither the slightest idea of characterization, nor the taste to edit out the psychobabble. After ripping off Sex, Lies and Videotape, the story reveals itself to be a watered-down version of Double Indemnity wherein Roberts and her lover have been setting up Tabori as the patsy in a scheme to knock off Segal. By this time one withes that they'd all just play Russian Roulette until the chamber was empty.