The Raspberry Reich

Vet Canadian film "bad boy" (though that designation is getting pretty age-inappropriate now) Bruce LaBruce goes to Germany but is otherwise up to his usual tricks with "The Raspberry Reich," his second self-labeled "porno" (following 1999's "Skin Flick"). This ostensible spoof of "radical chic" is, like his previous works, at once amusingly outrageous and slightly dull.

Vet Canadian film “bad boy” (though that designation is getting pretty age-inappropriate now) Bruce LaBruce goes to Germany but is otherwise up to his usual tricks with “The Raspberry Reich,” his second self-labeled “porno” (following 1999’s “Skin Flick”). This ostensible spoof of “radical chic” is, like his previous works, at once amusingly outrageous and slightly dull. Graphic sex acts will make an already marginal vid-shot item tough to place beyond gay fests, underground venues and specialized home-format sales, though purportedly an R-rated version is also in the works.

Dominatrix-like Gudrun (Susanne Sachsse, campily over-the-top) is leader and sole female member of titular Berlin revolutionary group inspired by Reich, Marx and legendary 70s German anarcho-terrorist org the Baader-Meinhoff Gang. While several of her cute acolytes kidnap a wealthy industrialist’s son, she informs two others that “Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses,” demanding they transcend circumscribed societal roles by shagging each other. Pretty soon all the lads are proving themselves quick studies. Anti-capitalist slogans repeatedly spoken and scrolled across screen pad out a rude, crude, often funny yet undercooked satire-cum-sexflick that’s finally more inspired in concept than in 91-minute execution.

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