No Man's Land 4

I don't much care for Jeanna Fine. (No offense, Jeanna, it's an attitude thing.) Jeanna has appeared in three "NML" films, including this one, "No Man's Land 4: Hot Rocks". In her most recent effort, this year's "Legends", she slyly undercuts one of the few good performances in the film, that of Teri Weigel, by revealing her amazement that Teri should actually get wet during sex. For Jeanna, it's always a performance - which is objectionable because she wants the audience to know that, too.

I say this not to damn Jeanna, but to praise her, if you can believe that. "Hot Rocks", made in 1990, just five years after Jeanna entered the business, is, relatively speaking, an early effort, perhaps her early career, with which I'm not familiar, was more to my taste. Certainly her performance in this film is more amenable. There's a moment in the second scene, when Natasha Skyler first goes down on her, that Jeanna's smile and expression tell a story in themselves, of a woman coming home to the ecstatic sex of her dreams. Only Madison, later in the film, demonstrates the sort of enthusiasm for girl/girl that Jeanna displays in this scene.

Jeanna wrote this film and directed it, with "technical" assistance from Jim Enright. Her script is brief and functional: after a four-year hitch in prison, thief Jeanna calls on the gang members who previously left her holding the bag, assuring each that she isn't sore and promising a sure thing if they all get back together. With Madison's help, Jeanna double-crosses them, and all five gang members wind up in prison. Jeanna's direction, even with Enright's assistance, is less successful. She shoots her own strap-on scene with Natasha in the foot: after a good start, with both girls in the shot, she moves in close and never backs off again. You'd figure a woman with her experience would know the damn dildo isn't going to cum no matter how long she focuses on it. She makes the opposite mistake in the next scene. Judy Blue is all over Patricia Kennedy's pussy, but Jeanna can't work out a way to get her camera in for a good look. (She does better, though, when Judy puts the same moves on Patricia in the final prison scene.) Whether the experience frustrated her or ultimately didn't interest her, "Hot Rocks" remains Jeanna's only directorial effort.

The "Hot Rocks" cast is attractive, but never stunning, and the same can be said of their performances. Melissa Mendez (besides Jeanna, the only cast member with another "NML" film to her credit, the first) makes out with Mia Powers in the first scene. Mia's the more energetic, but the sex is conventional. Judy Blue, as mentioned, does better, when Jeanna lets her, yet such moments are brief. Ms. Blue, however, is an interesting case. She appears from this film to be a performer of some merit, yet this is her only appearance in a sex role. She's much better known as a director, her credits including three episodes in the "Where the Boys Aren't" series. Historically minded viewers may want to catch this rare glimpse of her, with her side-swept 70's-looking blonde hair.

And then there's Madison. After the double-cross, she and Jeanna get it on in a hotel room. Like Jeanna, Madison is always Madison, whatever her role. She's a chirpy, squealing, talkative girl who always puts a great deal of energy into her performances. It may be a measure of Jeanna's relative insecurity here early in her career that a girl like Madison can dominate her through sheer of personality. True, Madison's incessant chatter can be overwhelming at times, but at least it shows she's into the scene. She echoes Jeanna's smile from scene two with an ecstatic "Oh God" of her own when Jeanna wraps her lips around one of her nipples, giving an excellent impression of Sapphic bliss. Later, she straddles Jeanna's face--always a welcome position. These girls also provide the film its only anal play when Madison inserts beads into Jeanna's ass.

The final five-girl scene never degenerates into an all-out orgy, thank goodness, and both Judy Blue and Melissa Mendez provide noteworthy moments of cunnilingus and strap-on action, respectively. (Yes, the girls possess their standard prison-issue sex toys.) The scene is fairly brief, though, or maybe it just seemed so because it never comes to any natural conclusion. It isn't such a bad ending for this film, though, which is, in the end, average girl/girl entertainment, stolen, fittingly enough, by the two chicks who get away with the goods at the end, Jeanna and Madison.

The "No Man's Land 4" disc includes a navigable full-screen photo gallery, trailers for other "NML" titles, and the usual links to the internet and phone sex commercials.