Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Boulevard is awful. It's dire, bleak, uninteresting and void of any fun.There was always a good chance it would be terrible, so I have no-one to blame but I will watch anything that has Kari Wuhrer in it. Every character other than Kari's is awful, even Henriksen's, which was a bit of a surprise as I remember liking other roles he's played.

Small town girl Jennefer (Kari Wuhrer) escapes from her abusive boyfriend J-Rod (Joel Bissonnette) to the big city of Toronto after giving up her newborn baby for adoption. She ends up sleeping on the streets encountering prostitute Ola (Rae Dawn Chong) and pimp Hassan (Lou Diamond Phillips). Ola finally relents and takes her in. Hassan kills one of his girls which is witnessed by Ola and another guy. Police detective McClaren (Lance Henriksen) investigates.This is an odd little exploitation movie. It tries to be hard and gritty. However, it comes off as a knockoff of a dirty 70's B-movie. Hassan is walking around with his cane and pimp gear. Even some of the cars are more 70s and 80s. The Chinese witness is in his stereotype kitchen gear. People are warming themselves with trash fires. Hookers are walking the streets. It's like a 70s movie dropped in the middle of 90s Toronto. The acting is uneven. I like Rae Dawn Chong. Kari Wuhrer is trying too hard to be the damsel in distress. The two women have some good moments and had potential to be something more. Lou Diamond Phillips is ridiculously pimplicious. This is definitely a B-movie.

This is a story about an abused woman named Jennefer who leaves her awful husband and flees to Toronto. She gets tangled in the world of prostitution. Jennefer is kind of stupid and dramatic. For some reason, while she is homeless on the streets of Toronto, she confides in a pimp named Hassan (which is a weird name, since it is Arabic and Lou Diamond Phillips looks East Asian). You're just going to step into a car with suspicious dude? She even goes to his apartment despite Ola's warnings and hardly knowing the man. Also, although Jennefer is adequate and healthy, she is unable to get a job (which is also weird), so she turns to become a prostitute like Ola (which is even weirder because Jennefer said at the beginning that she could never do a job like that). And when she's not being stupid, she is screaming and crying all the time. Like ALL THE TIME. She's just too trustworthy and naive. I just feel that her character is overdone. Hassan: Hassan is an interesting character. He is violent and if his prostitutes mess with him, they pay with their lives. I like his pimp rod. Lance Henriksen is the police officer, who for some reason doesn't do anything when he knows about this prostitution ring. If he knew all about these prostitutes, I would expect him to know about Hassan and the prostitute who was killed, so why not just arrest Hassan in the first place as a suspect in the crime? Ola: When Hassan was arrested, I don't understand why she didn't just leave like she wanted to. Hassan is no longer threatening her to prostitute herself, so why does she bother? Instead she chooses to stay for some reason. I also think it's odd that Ola let Jennefer prostitute herself. If you're trying to protect Jennefer and you hate your life as it is, why would you want Jennefer to be entangled in it? And like another person has posted, I don't understand why the ticket salesman told that creepy husband of hers where she went. Also, there is a lot of nudity in this film that is not really necessary. Why must I see Jennefer naked in the shower like three times?!? Overall, this is a movie that seems to assume that men are bad and women are good. I think it conveys a good depiction of the lives of prostitutes. From this film, I feel more sorry for those who lead these types of lives, but some parts of the film didn't really make much sense.

I have no idea if writer Andrea Wilde and director Penelope Buitenhuis intended to make a feminist exploitation film, but that's what Boulevard is. Kari Wuhrer plays a young woman who flees to the big city after getting knocked up by her abusive boyfriend (Joel Bissonette). Once there she tries to ignore the advances of local pimp lord Hassan (an oddly effective Lou Diamond Phillips), instead preferring the company of independent hooker Ola (Rae Dawn Chong). They're soon sharing a bath, a bed, and a Maya Angelou book. Wuhrer and Chong both deliver surprisingly good performances and the always excellent Lance Henriksen is also on hand as a vice cop. And for once, this filmed in Toronto production is actually set in...Toronto! Much better than you would expect.