Jon Dough’s terse, Big Bird physical style has always been a character waiting for the big movie part to land. And this time it may have in this very offbeat “drag” detective yarn.

Dough is an obsessive-compulsive P.I. named Cooper Newton who’s constantly spray cleaning his desk and lecturing his gal friend Zara Whites, who looks striking in this film, about what a slob she is. Dough is called to track down the whereabouts of one John Gladstone who has presumably dropped off the face of the earth. Has Gladstone been knocked off? Has anyone suggested checking out Gladstone’s in Malibu for openers?

Gladstone’s old lady, the gorgeous Italian superstar Moana Pozzi wants Newton to crack the case. She thinks her husband was lured away by “sexual acquaintances” he knew from a downtown sex club. Unfortunately, Moana also seems to be laboring under a handicap when her heavy Italian accent tries to compete in the outdoor scenes against the ocean’s roar. Forgivable when you take a gander at this woman in a bikini.

The sex club provides the upscale Café Flesh atmosphere for the film and there’s some very weird sexual shit going on here. And who is this Delta Devereaux person (Karen D’or) that looms mysteriously in the background of Dough’s investigation? Is there an apparent insurance scam in the offing? As Dough probes further, (“this chick’s got a dick,” Dough learns) there’s all kinds of dirty laundry evident in the hamper – give Joey Silvera best supporting actor consideration for his hair-trigger performance.

Dough is at once acrid, glib, fumbling and prissy – right on the money for the subject matter this film broaches. Crossing Over is a film that luxuriates with sparkling backdrops and the even more luxurious Moana who physically dominates the film’s sexual interludes (witness the toilet scene between her and Sharon Kane). Dare I say that even Karen D’or is well, ah, er, beautiful, er, gorgeous, er, anyway D’or gets the role of his or her life in a film that will amuse and intrigue you. I approached this picture with a certain amount of reservation considering some of the hokum D’or’s name has been attached to, but Pachard’s enlightened direction and Raven Touchstone’s witty, acerbic script makes this one of the more enjoyable and surprising adult film experiences you’ll have this year.