The directorial debut of Damien Hurley son of the late film producer Steve Bing and actress Elizabeth Hurley famous for her roles in the first two Austin Powers movies Strictly Confidential I thought the opening credits that are neon pink & a sexy font would be a throwback to the kind of Straight To Video film that Zalman King made with his Red Shoe Diary cinematic universe in the 90s but trust me it’s not.
When a group of friends’ annual summer holiday is rudely interrupted by one of them Rebecca (Lauren McQueen) takes her own life the tradition is kept up despite previous years’ tragic events by the deceased girl’s mother Lily (Elizabeth Hurley) but her best friend Mia (Georgia Lock) is deeply tore up by the death and is seeking answers as to why she did would kill herself.
While the other friends are enjoying the sun and grieving for Rebecca in their ways Mia is out playing detective on the island questioning people and stealing paperwork from her friend’s Psychiatrist putting the pieces together to find out the truth.
Strictly Confidential is a movie where the secrets of the past come to haunt those who are still around which is a mildly interesting plot device but in the hands of Damien Hurley it has the emotional heft of when Hollyoaks went a little racier and would have to be screened after the watershed only it’s even more poorly directed, acted, musically scored, photographed & edited.
The only sexy charge it supposedly has is the clandestine relationship Liz Hurley’s character Mia is having with her daughter’s friend Natasha (Pear Chiravara) but instead comes over a little cringy because it’s her son who is directing these sequences of his mother together with a younger woman expect to see this moment on more specialist sites anytime soon.
When it comes to the cast no one particularly stands out the guys are mostly English Himbo types with plumy accents, and buff bodies and all with the emotional range of bottled water although the stand-out performance of the female characters is Lauren McQueen’s Mia who is put through a range of emotions the others aren’t helped by some extremely bad dialogue also written by Damien Hurley who handles the twist in the final act with no skill whatsoever.
For a movie that is based around rich wicked people jetting off to the Caribbean for annual holidays, Strictly Confidential feels like a cheaply made film that is more akin to a college-class video project rather than a commercial product made for a paying audience.
As someone who does have an appreciation for this sort of campy trashy erotic movies that Shannon Tweed starring thrillers or John Derek directed with his young wife Bo in the 80s, Strictly Confidential is more Ghosts Can’t Do It than Bolero & that’s saying something.
I’d sooner have a double feature that consisted of Jim Belushi’s erotic thrillers Separate Lives & Traces Of Red than see Strictly Confidential again anytime soon.
Strictly Confidential Available On Digital (Inc. Sky/Amazon/ Google) from May 13th 2024
The Film Collective Scotland 
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