***SPOILERS*** What surprised me most about the movie "Second Skin" wasn't all the twist and turns as well as double and triple crossing of those in it. It was the fact that the movie was filmed in and around Capetwon South Africa. I could have sworn that the story took place in Southern California or at least on the sunny Florida coast.We have in the film noir "Second Skin" the usual mystery woman calling herself Crystal Ball, Natasha Henstridge, who has, after being hit by a runaway car, trouble remembering her past. There's also the somewhat strange used book store owner Sam Kane, Angus MacFadyen, who seems not at all interested in attracting customers to his store but also, in how he has no worries at all about paying the rent, independently wealthy.After Crystal's accident Sam gets very close to her not only hiring Crystal as his assistant, a job which at first Chrystal wanted, at the store but having this creepy looking guy Tommy G, Liam Waite, show up looking to buy children books not for any children but for himself! As things turn out Tommy G and Crystal do in fact know each other and are both working for the "Man" United Brotherhood of Tanners Union President Merv Gutman, Peter Fonda!***SPOILERS*** As the movie slowly unfolds we realize that Sam the used book store man ain't exactly what he want's us, and Crystal, to think he is! In fact we also find that Crystal isn't exactly what she want's Sam, and us in the audience, to think who she's also! We also learn that Tommy G turns out to be not only Crystal's boyfriend but somehow working together with Sam in a elaborate pay-off scheme to Gutman whom Sam, before he became Sam, owns money too! On top of all this confusion there's former Goernment Treasury Agent Hawthorne, Norman Anstey, who's blackmailing Sam to expose his true identity, as if he didn't know that already, to Gutman and want's a cool half million dollars in order to keep his mouth shut!The film just goes on and on with a series of confusing sub-plots and mind boggling double-crosses with Sam seeming to take on at least two other identifies, which makes it hard to follow his actions in the movie, by the time its finally over! The most confusing and odd-ball character in the film is non other then Tanner Union President Merv Gutman. This guy is so off the wall that even when he explains his reasons for wanting to do in the luckless Sam, who already paid off his debt to him, you get the strange impression that he just escaped from a local loony bin!As for the big surprise ending the person providing the surprise was about the least surprising character in the movie! In that if you blinked or sneezed while watching "Second Skin" you could have very well have missed him, or her, in the previous less then cameo scene he was in!

I caught this movie on TV after watching a rather suspicious promotional trailer. The first scene with the sensual Natasha Henstridge dressed in a semi-transparent white dress hooked me and I decided to give the movie a try.The first half of Second Skin is pretty tolerable. I felt I was watching a fair and honest low budget noir picture, certainly moving toward some major twists. But I could never expect the plot could become so flawed and the second half of the movie could become so lame and dreary.This predictable, cliché-ridden movie could have been interesting. The music and the photography create a nice, moody atmosphere. Henstridge is, well... sensual as the femme-fatale, and MacFadyen is ok as the guy running from his past. Even though I don't like the way some scenes are cut, the real problem is the plot which turns out to be some kind of mess in the second half of the movie.After the 90 minutes of Second Skin it's frustrating to realize probably nothing will linger in your memory apart from the beauty of Henstridge.

Natasha is very pretty, and yep she can act some, too. (Is it me, or is there more than a passing resemblance between her and Julia Roberts?) Fonda, while showing little range here, was quite creepy. The other girl in the movie... what the heck? She was in, what, 3? 4 scenes? 2? lines of dialogue? What was that all about? Maybe some of her scenes wound up getting cut, but, whatever the explanation, her character came out seeming bizarrely undershown, considering how important she turns out to be. Angus was alright. The big surprise for me here was Liam Waite; I hadn't seen him before, and I'm surprised to see the other comments on IMDB.com are so negative toward him. I found him quite intriguing here.The plot needed some help; I agree that the ending was poor, at least in part due to the mystery girl suddenly becoming so central at the end. There were other plot holes too, and a lot of cliches. Still, the mood of the film was nicely established, and I did feel some interest in the characters and finding out what their relationships were to one another. 4/10; would have been higher with a more rational plot, a more justifiable ending (not to say a cliched one, necessarily, but...), and a little more energy from the male lead.

The problem with this movie is the leaden touch of Darrell Roodt.Pretty photography and an absolutely gorgeous lead babe can't hide the fact that there is no plot, that the girl is getting involved with a guy who has the charisma of a rotting potato and that by the time you get to the mystery, you've really stopped caring.The movie _slowly_ meanders from one cliche to the next. Guy without a past runs a bookstore without clientele, when a beautiful babe comes in and spouts a number of tacky cliches. Then, in the mother of all plot devices, she walks out the store and _gets hit by a car_ so she can "lose her memory".Who cares? I don't. A waste of money.