Kids, please don’t read this review. Criss-crossing legs is not for you. If you crisscross legs boogeyman will get you.
After scaring away the kids (hopefully!), lets get to the basic business of reviewing; we have a vast terrain to crisscross.
Prelude to a Crisscross
’’Sharon Stone is hot, man. You should watch her crisscross legs’’ - an overeager virgin fiend
That’s how it all began in a dank dorm on a stormy night in a land far far away. He was (and is) overeager, and hence remains a virgin; you can substitute ’friend’ for ’the fiend’. As an aside, all my friends invariably tend to be fiends!
Like hobbits, anxious in discovering the grave perils of the great pit in the darklands of Mordor, we took our solicitous exploration to the nearest cinema hall. It was a morning show and the theater was crowded with the decent crowd you wouldn’t invite to your house. The kind spotted waiting in long serpentine queues, outside mouldy cinema halls, to watch a Z-grade Malayalam movie Fist-Day-First-Show. In other words, they are also known as Rickshaw Drivers and Lorry Drivers. With such an erudite audience constantly reminding us of their presence, via the medium of pleasant aroma of unwashed shirts and bodies, we waited with a bated breath - did we have any other choice? - for the movie to start.
With our legs Criss-Crossed
Opening scenes were a ’revealation’(excuze moi anglais). A retired rock-star gets ice-picked after a steamy copulation. Boy, you really need to be careful about whom you ’pick up’. Being pickled is no excuse to land in bed with missy ice-picks. The prime suspect happens to be Ms. Sharon Stone - we didn’t buy our tickets to learn her name - and the chief investigation officer happens to be - didn’t care for his name too - Michael Douglas.
While Mr. Douglas was busy unlocking the secrets hidden in the psychotic killer’s mind with the help of a lady psychiatrist confidante, Ms. Stone is busy living out a life of lesbian fantasy with a girlfriend. Not sure if Michael did indeed succeed in unlocking any secrets or not, but, he sure did manage to unzip the shrink’s brassiere. With so much lively action happening on-screen, a sneak peep revealed, the fiend next to me looked stoned; with his eyes and mouth wide open. With bad breath adding a stingy edge to the all-pervading frankincense filling the hall, I received some not-so subtle signals from my poor belly regarding an impeding volcanic eruption. Somebody ought to add the advice ’Keep your Mouthshut while watching steamy scenes’ to the list of ’Advices to watch Movies’.
Anyways... coming back to our main concern here, the crisscrossed legs, the famous...or infamous as you look at it...scene happens in a police station. After making us wait for so long, Lady of the Thongs (mercy, Mr. Tolkien) did her act. It was steamy and bold indeed, as I realized later watching the DVD version. But for then it was like digging a mole out of a mountain of expectations, blessed by the scissors-happy censors (somebody should ice-pick’em).
The consolation was the ROFL-LMAO scene that followed. The fat guy (whatchamaname) from Jurassic Park sweats profusely looking beyond the crossed legs, as if a T Rex was hanging by teeth from Ms. Stone’s non-existent panty hose. Or was it the fear Frodo & Samwise felt looking at the fiery red, erupting pools of lava, the bottomless ’Crack of Doom’ at Barad-Dur?
What followed were more steamy scenes, a few car chases, a few more murders... all in all - a twisted tale of needless twists. No surprises there. We didn’t believe the movie would win any Oscars. We also didn’t watch it for any - out of bed - action.
But sadly, even after the identity of the murderer (yawn) was revealed, the unsolved mystery of the crisscrossed legs lingered on.
A Crossed Conclusion
It took a few more years, a rented DVD and the pause button on the remote, for the enigmatic secrets of those crossed legs to reveal themselves. Don’t want to spoil the suspense for those who are planning on watching the movie. As I keep chiding my mentor Morpheus - ’’No one can tell you what crisscrossed legs is. You must watch it for yourselves’’