"The Girl From the Naked Eye" DVD review.

So I had this free rental code from Redbox and I was at Kroger and The Girl From the Naked Eye was what I got. Yep, that happened. I wasn't expecting greatness, but I wasn't expecting this either; a film that announces itself as absolute garbage from the get-go only to show flashes of brilliance that makes me wish there was a commentary track or something to explain WTF the filmmakers were trying for.

It "stars" co-writer/producer Jason Yee (who's done a bunch of bit acting work, but gives himself a "introducing" credit) as Jake, a guy whose gambling bad luck has stuck him with a gig driving call girls around for club owner Ron Yuan (who also produces and serves as action director). When underage platonic love interest Samantha Streets (that's the actress' name, not her hooker character) is killed, he goes on the hunt to avenge her death. Stop me if you've heard this one less than 100 times before.

From the opening scenes, The Girl From the Naked Eye announced it was going to suck with horrible noir pretensions and a leading man so wooden, so lacking in basic acting timing that he makes Keanu Reeves seem like Nicolas Cage. The clunky voice-over narration really makes you appreciate the mastery of Sin City and yet it was exhibiting such a level of terrible that I kept watching just to see where it was going. That's when it started to show some flashes of genius, though I'm not certain whether they were accidental or not.

There are a few scenes that play like a parody of a hard-boiled crime noir and I began to wonder if this was deliberate or they'd sailed so far past incompetent sincerity that they landed in some accidental brilliant place. They quickly get over it, though, and the tedium continues as we get flashbacks of the non-romance between Yee and Streets interspersed with fight scenes ranging from rote to almost impressive, especially the one that's totally ripped of from Old Boy scored with Pachelbel's "Canon." Yee isn't Bruce Lee, but almost makes it seem like he knows what he's doing unlike his "acting" parts.

Don't let the prominent featuring of porn star Sasha Grey entice you into picking this up either because she is in literally ONE SCENE as a girl on an elevator

Score: 2/10. Skip it, but if you happen to notice it's on while channel surfing, watch a bit.