Not being the Village Voice, opening up a film review with a polemic on sexual politics is kind of an awkward position for AVN at the very least, but it would be remiss to avoid calling attention to a scene of such misogonystic bile that it makes Thelma and Louise look like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The ugly device on which the foundation that the entire story is built centers on the rape and death of an innocent woman. Film history recalls Rashomon with favorable light, but to paraphrase Lloyd Benson, co-scripter/star Leo Damian is no Akira Kurosawa.

Here, Damian plays a former child star-cum bored millionaire who's been dabbling in a torrid computer bulletin board affair with Dana (Christina Fulton), a girl he's never met. After numerous fantasy sequences detailing their mutually overactive imaginations (including a burglary/rape scenario) his dream girl finally gives him her address. True to form, he realizes her fantasy by breaking in and raping her. As he gets off, so does his gun (thank you, Dr. Freud) and the babe catches a fatal slug in the belly. Hitch is, Dana's tripped him up. Leo's broken into the wrong girl's house. The sex may have been great, but Leo now finds the requisite post-coital smoke may be rising from an electric chair instead of a Kool.

Even if Hard Drive had any redeeming qualities (aside from some creative camera angles) one would be hard pressed to forgive the film­makers, who portray the remaining female characters as brittle cunts — which, as any fan of "noir" knows, is no substitute for a sublimely cold femme fatale. Nor does it take a brain surgeon to figure out that Dana is in cahoots with Leo's wife (Belinda Waymouth) and her male lover (Matt McCoy) and that they're all after Leo's millions.

Supplanting any real verbal repartee are stock dialogue exchanges and endless gazes into the ocean waves. The atmosphere, if any, is tomb-like, and vacant expressions on the actor's faces say either "not enough rehearsal time" or "I wonder if my check is going to clear?" Despite the fact that the film has a decent look, somebody must have run out of money; because cameo "star" Edward Albert Jr. delivers all his lines against what appears to be an unpainted piece of dry wall.

Look for hardcore star Melanie Moore in a fantasy sex sequence.