Main cast: Rob Lowe (Tim Whalen), Meg Tilly (Olivia Lawrence), Kim Cattrall (Brooke Morrison), Doug Savant (Officer Mike McGill), John Glover (Tony Gateworth), Dana Delany (Anne Briscoe), and Erik Holland (The Chief of Police)
Director: Bob Swaim
Masquerade is one of those adorably trashy thrillers from the 1980s that featured gratuitous sex, ridiculous plots, and over-the-top melodrama. What can I say? Those were the days of big hair, rich people with white trash taste in love and money, and Jackie Collins.
It’s hard to believe that Dick Wolf wrote the screenplay before he went to Law & Order. Maybe this was like that bachelor sowing his last wild oats before settling down into domesticity.
We travel to the upscale town of Southampton, Long Island, where young heiress Olivia Lawrence returns to attend her mother’s funeral and claim her inheritance. Ooohhh, all that money! That will help with the grieving process.
Meanwhile, Olivia’s alcoholic stepfather, Tony Gateworth, and his new live-in girlfriend, Anne Briscoe, are living it up in Olivia’s house. Thanks to her mother’s will, Tony has access to the family’s eight properties and a cool million-dollar yearly allowance, which he’s burning through with his gambling habit. Olivia can’t stand the guy, who clearly married her mother for the cash.
While in town, she also reunites with childhood friend Mike McGill, now a cop, who harbors a crush on her. Alas, Olivia’s heart is not beating for poor Mike. Instead, she falls for bad boy Tim Whalen, the local yachting savant and captain of the racing sailboat Obsession. What Olivia doesn’t know is that Tim is quite the local gigolo, already having a steamy affair with Brooke, the wife of his boss Granger Morrison. Oh, and he might just be plotting with some shady characters to steal Olivia’s fortune… or even her life!
This tangled web of romance, deceit, and murder unfolds against a backdrop of Southampton’s high society, featuring unnecessary scenes of men in mankinis, Rob Lowe’s sadly flatter than flat bare ass, and the ever flammable and sadly underutilized-in-Hollywood Doug Savant in tighty-whities.
The plot is absurd, yes, but the cast goes beyond the call of duty. Meg Tilly is gorgeous as this sweet and somewhat naïve but definitely not gullible rich gal in town that falls for the always sexier-than-sin Rob Lowe (sad flat ass and chicken legs notwithstanding). Kim Cattrall is gorgeously bitchy and wicked, and John Glover chews scenery with relish with and without those speedos (which, I admit, make him look hot in a sleazy and slimeball way). The weakest link is Doug Savant, whose acting is flatter than Rob Lowe’s ass, but I enjoy looking at him, especially when he’s in those tighty-whities and that hot police uniform, so I’ll forgive him because I’m a pushover for hot men.
Really, the plot blows, but the movie is such a crazy over-the-top sleazeball thriller that you can’t stop having the fun of your life laughing at the hokey dialogues, absurd twists, and looking at the hot male cast members (I’m sure the ladies are eye candies too to folks that swing that way).
My only quibble is the rushed ending, but hey, I’m sorrier that the movie has ended and this lovely little epilogue to Dynasty (the OG, not the sad reboot) is now over. Ah, I really miss the trashy 1980s!
