Crush

There's a lot of steaminess in Crush, but most of it's coming from the bubbling mud pits surrounding Rotorua, the geothermal resort in New Zealand that's the setting for the film. Despite the movie's storyline, the sexual tensions in Crush are surprisingly marginal. The film wants to be a hip, mordant film noir thriller, but it ends up playing more like a kinky version of an existentialist drivers ed. flick. Sort of a Blood on the Highway, Ingmar Bergman style.

The really big crush takes place at the beginning of the movie. Lane (Marcia Gay Harden)and Christina (Donogh Rees) are driving across New Zealand's exotic landscape to Rotorua. Christina is a literary critic who's heading there to interview a novelist whose career is in eclipse. Lane and Christina may, or may not, be lovers — Crush leaves that question hanging. Either way, Christina is clearly the better driver.

Unfortunately, she discovers that fact only after letting Lane behind the wheel. Lane is an American: she's brash and wild, she drives way too fast and she can't steer to save her rear. She promptly looses control on a curve and totals both the car and Christina.

Lane survives the wreck with barely a scratch. Christina is nearly crushed by the car. Presumably, she's even more crushed when she discovers that Lane has decided to walk the rest of the way to town, casually abandoning her to the New Zealand health care system.

For reasons that are never clear, Lane becomes determined to move in on the novelist. She first meets up with his daughter, the boyish-looking Angela (Caitlin Bossley). Lane takes the kid on a wild night through bad bars and cheap motel rooms. She seduces Angela, which is how she's introduced to dad.

Colin (William Zappa) is, at first, crushed to find them in bed together. Then he gets a crush on Lane. (Why not? Everyone else seems to have a crush on her.) This time, at least, there's no question about whether the pair is having sex. They do. Lots of it.

But now, Angela feels a little crushed by the situation. And poor flattened Christina isn't out of the picture. There's bound to be crushing events yet to come.

Crush is the first feature film by Alison Maclean, a New Zealander by way of Canada. The flick has the rough-and-tumble style of a good B-movie, but it's too overt and predictable for its own good. In fact, it has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer's crushing blow.