Unfairly pegged as a "female Death Wish", Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 is a pretty intense little movie that has more going on underneath than a typical revenge style movie. It's a logical step forward for Ferrara as a director after the mish-mash that was his debut, Driller Killer, and it joins some of his later films (Bad Lieutenant, Fear City and King Of New York) as examples of why he may just be one of the more interesting filmmakers based out of New York.

Zoe Tamerlis plays Thana, a mute and withdrawn girl who works in the hectic world of fashion design as a dressmaker for a local designer. It's a decent job and she lives a pretty quiet life but all that's about to be shot to Hell when, on the way home from hanging out with some co-workers, she ends-up being dragged into an alley by a masked thug and brutally raped. As if that wasn't bad enough for the poor girl, and to add insult to injury, she happens to drag her abused self home to her apartment only to interrupt a thief in the middle of a robbery.

After being raped, for a horrible second time, Thana ends-up burying an iron into the home invading crooks head and killing him. It's an action she's forced into doing, and it only helps to shatter her already unstable mindset, but at the same time it makes something click deep in her brain. It's a switch that's been thrown that gives her the ability to actually cut up and store in bags her deceased aggressor without giving her enough time to dwell on what a twisted thing she's doing. In fact, the trauma has blinded her so much; that tossing said bags into garbage cans throughout the city doesn't faze her either.

From here director Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John (credited here as N.G. St. John) make their tragic 'heroine' purchase a handgun, the 45 of the title, and start taking vengeance on any men who she feels threatened by or see treating women badly. She truly becomes a killing machine as in one evening she manages to kill about eight or nine people.

By now, and quite understandably, Thana is more than a little unstable and it all leads to a finale set at a costume party that has her wearing a nun's costume (one of the films more recognizable images) and leads to a truly shocking slow-motion slaughter in the finale.

What makes Ms. 45 a Hell of a lot more than just a typical low-budget exploitation movie is that Ferrara and St. John don't look at their movie as being such a thing. They've made a movie that's not a pleasant ride and have actually succeeded in giving the viewer and idea of just how much a human being can take before they are driven to the edge, before they truly do something they wouldn't usually. They've structured the movie in such a way that by the time it ends you'll feel both disgust and sympathy for our protagonist, which only makes things more effective as, usually, films of this nature don't get under your skin as much as they manage to.

As for Tamerlis' performance as Thana, since her character is a mute the actress is forced to use body language and expression to pull it off and she does a stellar job of it. It's a rare thing when an actor can pull a feat off and Tamerlis conveys both terror and pure insanity with great skill. It's too bad she didn't go on to have much of a career after this and it's even more tragic that she died of an apparent overdose in 1999.

And while the movie is quite violent and has a few extremely morbid moments (the meat grinder scene, for instance) it's not a movie about violence, it's about being a victim and it works better than it should. It's also worth noting here that the DVD released by Image is apparently missing a small amount of footage, but seeing as it's mostly from the rape scenes it's not something we're sure to miss too much. (Chris Hartley, 10/3/07)

Directed By: Abel Ferrara.
Written By: N.G. St. John.

Starring: Zoe Tamerlis, Albert Sinkys, Darlene Stuto, Helen McGara.