Dinner at Frankie's

The cadence of the title prepared me for something like a "Weekend at Bernie's", but this late-career Michael Raven feature for Wicked Pictures more closely resembles those talkathon Cable softcore dramas of interpersonal relationships among a group of friends or acquaintances.

Contract star Kirsten Price hosts the title get-together, and it turns out there's plenty of cheating going on. This makes for easy inclusion of the five sex scenes, mostly presented in flashback, but Raven and his scriptwriter Jennifer Allison fail to create interesting characters or plot situations. It's just about the reactions among the old friends, leading to some dramatic confrontations by too-heavy a player as usual Randy Spears and semi-comic relief concerning the predicament of odd couple Alektra Blue and Barrett Blade. Casting of both Spears and Blade virtually ensured by dislike for the resulting feature.

It's generally told from Kirsten's point-of-view, and she manages to overcome the weak material. But clearly the Raven approach is out of step with Adult audience tastes, perhaps signalling his imminent early retirement.