AVN Award Contenders: jessica drake In “Fallen”

Buzz around the swank cocaine-upholstered offices of Hollywood agents was that Wicked's angel pic "Fallen" was being pitched as "It's A Wonderful Life"-meets-"Wings of Desire"-meets a faceful of xup. Read our review after the gap.

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Fallen

Studio: Wicked
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: jessica drake, Jenna Haze, Brad Armstrong, Shyla Stylez, Angie Savage, Ryder Skye, Jennifer Dark, Jada Fire, Lana Croft, Gianna Lynn, Michelle McLaren

"Yes. Right in that little fuckhole," says Jenna Haze in the opening scene of Fallen, a guardian angel-out-of-grace tale from Wicked. But I don't think it's relevant to the story.

drake plays Haze's guardian angel, and when Haze dies in a freak elevator crash, drake feels guilty for screwing up at work. You see, Haze's boyfriend, played by Armstrong, was going to ask her to marry him that night, but Haze decided to go home instead--via elevator.

While it is not lost on this turtlenecked cineaste that Haze dying while going down is a metaphor for angels in general and the state of porn in particular, what is odd is that drake, a supernatural being, gets stuck behind a locked apartment building door.

"It was my job to protect her," drake says, a feather falling to her pointy white angel boots. "And I failed."

This was four years ago, and drake has been fired. Still immortal, she drifts toward the dark side, feeling no love "from above."

Can she be redeemed? Will she turn her back on heaven? That is the theme of Fallen, and not the theme of Dirtpipe Milkshakes 2.

drake visits the seedy, smoky, and dimly lit (a Wicked trademark) fleshpots of Los Angeles after musing prettily atop a building with the L.A. skyline behind her.

Poor drake. Now that she is no longer an angel, the cops think she is a hooker. But then she meets Armstrong, the former boyfriend of dead Jenna Haze. He is a bike messenger now, and they bump into each other when he spills coffee on her. Another metaphor for what he will eventually spill on her? You're goddamn right.

But lonelyhearts Armstrong is the innocent side of drake's new life. She still needs to purge herself of the fleshly temptations she has enjoyed since her wings were clipped. She stops by Jennifer Dark's house to watch her getting reamed.

Finally she goes on a date with Brad. At his house she notices a photo of Haze, her lost charge. She freaks out.

"I took the stairs for months after that," Armstrong says. "Even after they fixed {the elevator}."

The coincidence is all too weird for the fallen angel. She returns to a life of debauchery, blowing Herschel Savage on his cab, inserting things into Angie Savage, and saying things like "it's all too weird."

Fallen sometimes bows under the weight of its own earnestness, and the dialogue at times falls flat, but both drake and Armstrong acquit themselves nicely to a script that leaves lots of room to make her look glamorous, him look sensitive and easygoing, and us believe there is a God who lets His ex-employees go to orgies and stick dildoes in Angie Savage.

The movie resolves in a twist ending. I don't know if couples actually watch porn together or if that is a myth, but Fallen proves itself to be a satisfying and well-shot high-end porn with a moral: don't step into an elevator after saying "fuckhole."

· Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
· Buy "Fallen" (gamelink.com)