“V” is for Vendetta, but also “vacuous” — the very definition of this routine revenger from Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures.
In her one and only film role, Michelle Newkirk plays Bonnie, a young woman who murders her rapist (Greg Bradford, Zapped!) on the spot, then gets sentenced to two years in the clink for manslaughter. Behind bars, Bonnie refuses to become the bitch of the butch Kay (Sandy Martin, aka Napoleon Dynamite’s Grandma), so the mulleted gang leader has the good girl whacked and jacked with a lethal injection and staged to look like a suicide.
For Bonnie’s big sis, Hollywood stuntwoman Laurie (Karen Chase, Private School), that news is too bitter a pill to swallow. Knowing it’s BS, Laurie embarks on an afternoon crime spree for the sole purpose of being convicted and sent to the same prison so she can take out those responsible for Bonnie’s death. And by gum, her plan works! As Laurie explains to a gigolo during a conjugal visit, it’s all about “achieving honorable justice. That’s bushido.” (Hey, it beats “Did you finish?”)
Chase excels at the physical, but makes a mistake in spouting so many stupid lines with the weight of the world. Martin, however, recognizes the campiness of her dumb dialogue (example: “Look, if I wanted shit from you, I’d pick your teeth!”) and responds by tearing into it whole-hog with a heaping side of relish. A better director would strike a tonal balance between his protagonist and antagonist, but Vendetta has a first-timer in VFX man Bruce Logan (something called Star Wars). Despite erring in performance coaxing, Logan adheres to the rules of the Corman school by filling his film with many explosions and many more bare breasts, as every women-in-prison picture should.
Speaking of, Vendetta marks the final role for Corman regular Roberta Collins, who fatally overdosed two years later. Here, the star of The Big Doll House, Women in Cages and Caged Heat graduates from inmate to guard — and quite admirably acts her tail off. —Rod Lott