‘Love Crimes’ (R)

"Love Crimes" feels like a TV movie caught uncomfortably between broadcast and cable. It has a preposterously tawdry plot with rent-a-psychosis undercurrents and elements of "Misery" and "The Collector," which you can find regularly on more than one network. But it also has lots of nudity (as distressingly usual, it's all female nudity). Both aspects are unlikely to provide much of a boost for the career of troubled actress Sean Young, here miscast as a crusading district attorney chasing down a sexual psychopath (Patrick Bergin), who ingratiates himself to women by masquerading as a famous photographer. Once he has them alone, and once he has their trust, Bergin turns nasty and plays out sexual fantasies, recording them with a Polaroid. Even Helmut Newton might blush, though not Madonna.

Since none of the women are willing to further degrade themselves by pressing charges and facing a public trial, Young takes matters into her own hands, turning "Love Crimes" into a cat-and-louse drama. Unfortunately, it all gets played out in a malnourished, clumsy plot that makes no sense, particularly when the inevitable flashback to a traumatic incident from Young's youth sets up a warped courtship scenario that requires some particularly demeaning nude shots of Young (and so what if the film is directed by a woman, Lizzie Borden?). Even the finale seems handed down, from "Fatal Attraction" and a dozen other films.

Burdened by several of the worst haircuts in recent film history, Young seems perpetually anxious to step out of the camera's range. Vacillating between genuine befuddlement and apparent neurosis, she wanders through the Georgia landscape as if this role were a sentence, not an opportunity.

As for the handsome Bergin, who played the vengeful husband in "Sleeping With the Enemy," he needs to worry about becoming typecast as the two-faced man who can project immense charm one moment and equally immense threat the next.

This film brings credits to resumes, but no moral credit to anyone involved.

"Love Crimes" is rated R and contains much nudity and scenes of sexual and psychological abuse.