DEFENSELESS. 1991, New Visions Pictures. Barbara Hershey, Sam Shepard, Mary Beth Hurt, K. T. Walsh, Kellie Overbey, Sheree North. Director: Martin Campbell.

   Billed as a thriller, it is every inch that, with lots of dark night suspense and a bloody scene or two. But Defenseless is also a noir film – neo-noir, if you will – with the just the right combination of lighting (which for a color film is quite remarkable) – and a detective movie, too, with just the right amount of legal pyrotechnics.

   Martin Campbell later directed both GoldenEye and Casino Royale, plus both recent Zorro movies (the ones with Catherine Zeta-Jones), which is quite a resume in itself. Working behind the cameras, Campbell knows how to grab viewers quickly (and smoothly) into the story and keep them there.

   But this is Barbara Hershey’s film all the way. As attorney Thelma “T. K.” Knudsen Katwuller, she’s in (at an estimate) 90% of the movie’s footage, and if she weren’t watchable (but she is) there’d be no reason to watch at all. Her most striking feature in this movie is a large mane of unruly and terminally curly jet black hair, but as a character, it’s her disorganized and unlucky-in-love life that makes her sympathetic and vulnerable.

   Brief story summary: She’s having an affair with her client (K. T. Walsh), a rich businessman who’s in trouble because a warehouse he owns has been used to make pornographic films. When she learns that he knows all about it, she goes ballistic. She’s also the one who calls the police when almost immediately after she finds him dead. As it happens, the dead man’s wife (Mary Beth Hurt, so blonde and southern it makes your teeth ache) was her college roommate 20 years earlier, and somewhat unaccountably she wants T. K. to represent her when she’s arrested for the crime.

   As a homicide detective named Beutel, Sam Shepard is the only low-key player in the ensemble, so lanky and laconic you could picture him splitting rails in his spare time. There is a lot more I could tell you, but I’ve already told you more than I usually would, figuring some of the twists already mentioned should remain just that, twists. On the other hand, as I’ve already said, this is the barest bones of a rather complicated plot, and I’m holding back on all of the choicest parts.

   I don’t know if I’ve got you leaning toward watching the movie or not, if by chance a copy happens along your way, but if you do – decide to watch, that is – you’re better off with the video rather the DVD version. There’s no warning on the label, but about 14 minutes are missing. The cuts remove the nude scenes, not surprisingly, but several other scenes are clipped as well, and others are completely eliminated. Also missing are crucial pieces of the plot, nicked to death here and there.