Yet another instance of pornographers sneaking into the mainstream via softcore, Checkmate—also known as Pepper and Pepper: Agent OOX—is a dunderheaded riff on James Bond, replacing the suave stud of the 007 franchise with a statuesque blonde. Wiseass operative Pepper Burns (Diana Wilson) gets called into service when villain Madame Chang (An Tsan Hu) announces her plan to seize control of a secret nuclear-armed satellite controlled by four different countries; if the countries don’t pay Chang $1 billion each, she’ll nuke their biggest cities. So far, so good. Yet once Checkmate establishes its premise, the movie tumbles into repetitive stupidity. Chang’s gimmick is using seductresses to coax representatives of the four countries into undressing so Chang can steal keys the reps carry on their persons—but seeing as how she murders the reps immediately afterward, why not just kill them right away and skip the sexcapades? Pepper does virtually nothing for the movie’s first hour, meaning she hangs around and receives reports until engaging in a dull foot chase through Central Park. Eventually Pepper’s big moment arrives—screwing the American representative (a coupling shown at interminable length) in order to sorta-kinda-but-not-really gain the upper hand on Chang. Although Checkmate is thoroughly awful, not only because of its idiotic script but because of the cheap visuals, there’s a certain playfulness on display. For example, when the Russian rep sees his seductress nude, he exclaims, “Holy mother of Stalin!” It’s not wit, but it’s something. Leading lady Wilson, previously a Playboy model under the name Reagan Wilson, has a bit of swagger, so she might have become an enjoyable B-movie regular if she’d made other films. Then again, appearing in something this tacky could stifle anyone’s enthusiasm for filmmaking.
Checkmate: LAME
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