Dangerous Beauty

Dangerous Beauty, more like Dangerous Booty, as director Marshall Herskovitz veers clumsily back and forth between an earnest depiction of the proto-feminist life of a 16th-century courtesan/poet (Catherine McCormack) and a hokey Harlequin bodice ripper, complete with gauzy amber scenes of artfully entwined limbs. Agreeably silly until the plague hits Venice and our lusty heroine faces the Inquisition, Beauty degenerates into a ludicrous courtroom showdown that begins like A Man for All Seasons (martyr chooses death over betrayal of conscience) and ends like Dead Poets Society (everyone and his uncle stands in support of the beleaguered protagonist). Rufus Sewell, as her aristocratic lover, deserves an Oscar for Prolonged Glowering. C-