A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The review contains small spoilers but a movie like this has no big surprises anyway. The acting and screenplay are poor throughout and the pointless musical interludes excruciating. The idea, a high-school senior battling a drugs organisation alone because the cops are useless and the school staff corrupt or ineffective, is certainly interesting. But as the film 'progresses', it turns out that's all there is to it.Little-known Lucinda Dooling in the lead isn't bad at all (though she doesn't have much competition). In a powerful opening scene, she overpowers a minor drug dealer and holds him helpless, while calmly forcing him to eat his own stash. A strong and disturbing representation of a schoolgirl, which promises a lot, especially as the movie is full of sleazy sexist characters, crying out for the same treatment or worse. Sadly it's all downhill from here. Dooling copes OK in her fight scenes, which are reasonably well-staged, but they are poorly thought out: at one point three heavies run away from her, later the same men overpower her easily – just whatever the 'plot' requires; there's a lot of shooting, but no-one ever hits anything; when women fight men, it's all kick-ass karate, when the same women fight other women, it's all ineffective rolling around, mostly in plates of messy food.The long action finale is particularly poor, with endless running around, shooting and missing, and driving speedboats in circles, all for no reason, and the hero is given no worthwhile opponent at the end. But to be fair to an otherwise somewhat sexploitative movie, she never needs rescuing, and has no male assistance at any point.If you can find this going cheap, it's worth the price to watch those terrific first five minutes and imagine what might have been. (Or watch it on Youtube – it was there at time of posting this review.)

Mary Ann Lovett((Lucinda Dooling)is called by her friends Lovely.Her younger brother drowns in a drug related accident.Mary becomes angry and decides to stop drugs in her high school via martial arts."Lovely But Deadly" was directed by David Sheldon,who also directed quite effective horror flick "Devil Times Five" in 1974.The acting is amateurish but full of enthusiasm and the fight scenes are unintentionally funny.I loved girl fight scene between Mary Ann Lovett and some blond cheerleader during the party.The film is quite violent but not bloody at all.The body count in this supremely cheesy vigilante flick is surprisingly low.If you enjoyed "Coffy" with Pam Grier you can give "Lovely But Deadly" a look.7 karate cheerleaders out of 10.

One scene in 'Lovely but Deadly' has rightly become legendary among those who go for this sort of thing. Lucinda Dooling, her startlingly cut (for 1981) muscles rippling, subdues the high school pusher, forcing him to take an overdose of his "own medicine," all the while speaking to him in the calmest, sweetest tones imaginable, absolutely in control.The rest of the film is good cheesy fun -- best watched with some buddies and a six pack -- but the one scene is dangerous erotica. We have never really had a genuinely tough movie heroine who caught on with the general public (although Kathy Long, Jillian Kesner and Lucinda Dickey certainly had the stuff) and "Lovely But Deadly" stands as the one claim Dooling might have had for this title.

An absolute classic for fans of mixed fighting. Actually, this is my favorite film of all time. A Young lady goes after a gang of drug dealers to get revenge for the drug related death of her brother. There are many nice mixed fight scenes in the movie. The greatest scene of all is after Lucinda has beat up a pusher, she pins his arms under her knees behind his back and rubs his throat forcing him to drink his own drugs. Simply awesome.