Rife with outlandish symbolism and sexual encounters that sim­mer, boil, and detonate with passion, Dog Walker is not only the first John Leslie film for his own production company — but per­haps his finest work, period. For a director who's been reinvent­ing the rules of adult entertainment on a regular basis (who can forget Chameleons?) this is no mean feat. Fasten your seatbelt and expect the unexpected, because Dog Walker is going to take you to places that span the gap from reality to dreams, desire to flesh and real to surreal.

An unsettling urban atmosphere of wet pavements, back alleys and rising steam is Leslie's chess board, on which he moves Steven St Croix (as Tito, a two-bit diamond diief) around like a crazy cos­mic pawn. His life in crime begins to collapse when he's double-crossed by his bosses (Jon Dough and David Pollman), as well as a mobster played by Leslie himself, in a chilling cameo.

Dough and Pollman administer a severe attitude adjustment to St. Croix by first attacking him in his own home, dien rubbing die salt of humiliation in his wounds by aggressively fucking his wife (the sultry Krysti Lynn). 'Tito, why don't you stick around," says Dough, ran­cor dripping out of his mouth like drool. "I'm gonna fuck your wife in the ass."

He does. They spank her. They slam her. She loves it. The scene is uncom­fortable, nasty... and unusually erotic. Complacent viewers, particularly cou­ples, are going to be shocked out of their shorts.

Though the purposely fragmented (but stimulating) plot is better left to viewing dian verbal recitation, die film is marked by several excep­tionally hot erotic sequences. Moving into territory of the subcon­scious (Dog Walker = interpretation, class!) we find Joey Silvera play­ing a possible representation of St. Croix's psyche, as well as main peg in a torrid three-way widi Lana Sands and newcomer Maeva, whose butthole is bombarded like a Bosnian air strike.

In an inspired casting move, Leslie is able to bring forth from gorgeous Christina Angel her most sultry and aggressive sexual performances to date. As the tide character (temptress/muse to St. Croix's fevered mind), she guides, tantalizes and generally fucks with his head big-time before allowing him a taste of her plentiful physical charms. Simultaneously tangible and ethereal,and always provocativeher presence is indelibly stamped on nearly every scene.

When hooker Isis Nile jerks off St. Croix publicly in a crowded bar, and then whisks him to the back room for a seated reverse cowgirl/facial, Angel's there in the back­ground soloing behind a glass partition. In an open field, she gobbles three sticky loads from Tom Byron, Alex Sanders and Jake Williams, while St. Croix (in a costume boosted from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western) and crime boss Jamie Gillis have a verbal showdown which could have been written by Samuel Beckett. Voyeurs will salivate over a tryst much softer in tone, but riveting nonetheless, wherein supple Gerry Pike nails Angel in a batiiroom while St. Croix watches.

Her finale with St. Croix is the highlight, and we see a relative newcomer hit her sexual stride with this one. Leslie has tapped into Christina's nastier side and unleashed a sen­suality that was too often neglected in one-day video shoots. St. Croix kneads her ass cheeks like raw sourdough and eats her ass while she gives expert head in a prelude to one of the finest doggie/missionary couplings you're likely ever to witness.

Performances are top-drawer throughout, par­ticularly St. Croix in an intense and unusually subdued turn. Aided by sharp cinematography, and a fabulous original musical score, Leslie (who also wrote and edited) is able to effectively juxtapose the disturbing, violent imagery — never directed against women — with the hot sexual elements, widiout jumping the unspoken line that directors can't cross if they want their productions distrib­uted in this country. For viewer and retailer alike, Dog Walker provides all diat one could ask for: a top-of-the-line feature that far outclasses 99% of the goods on the market. Leslie, along with Anthony Spinelli, Paul Thomas, Cecil Howard, Alex deRenzy and a few others, has that knack for providing an interesting film that just happens to include explicit sex. In that genre, Dog Walker succeeds as well as any film since last year's Justine.And we know what happened with that one.