Call Me: The Rise & Fall Of Heidi Fleiss: Unrated & Uncut DVD Review

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Title: Call Me: The Rise And Fall Of Heidi Fleiss: Unrated & Uncut

Stars: Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Brenda Fricker, Corbin Bernsen, Saul Rubinek, Robert Davi, and Emmanuelle Vaugier

Writer: Norman Snider

Director: Charles McDougall

Executive Producer: Stanley M. Brooks

Running Time: 84 minutes

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Closed Captions and English and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Amaray Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 24

Sound: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Year Of DVD Release: 2005

Home Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

“Call Me: The Rise And Fall Of Heidi Fleiss” is ironically one of those stories that could only happen in America and in particularly Los Angeles. The city of Angels is perhaps only equal to New York in being a concrete personification of both the light and dark sides of the American Dream. Jamie-Lynn DiScala (The Sopranos) manages to capture the body language and mannerisms of the real Heidi Fleiss as seen on television news programs and magazine shows to such a degree that one almost feels like she is channeling the onscreen persona of the notorious Hollywood Madam through some supernatural means. Much of the cast in the film, in particular Corbin Bernsen, Robert Davi, Brenda Flicker, and Saul Rubinek, are excellent too. This film originally aired on the USA Network and I was impressed back in 2004 at how the envelope was pushed for this TV film when I saw an advanced screener. The film presents some brief profanity, mild nudity, and adult subject matter in as tasteful a manner as possible and in this case it did help to illustrate character and forward the story. I am no prude, but sometimes I find excessive violence and sex that does not somehow forward the story or define a character to be the equivalent to pornography after awhile and I think some feature film producers could learn a few things from watching this TV movie.

My only caveat is that at times I found the movie moved too fast and as a result certain supporting roles like Saul Rubinek as Fleiss’ Pediatrician father that helped her launder money to appears to be incomplete. Even in it’s unrated and uncut form, this is still just too short to give the viewer enough of an understanding into Fleiss’ background as well as her family for one to understand completely what drove this young woman’s ambition in the direction it did. Despite everything dramatized in the film, I never really felt I learned anything from watching it other than what I already knew from the television tabloids. Case and point, a friend had asked me if I saw any good new movies lately and I told him I screened a movie about Heidi Fleiss and recommended he should check it out now that it is out on DVD. He replied, “Besides being a Hollywood Madam, what did Fleiss do so wrong that she deserved to serve jail time when there are people who have done far worse things that escape justice?” and I honestly could not answer the question because there are a lot of people out there guilty of intolerable things that make being a Hollywood Madam look like a misdemeanor in comparison, but these people are still going about their business seemingly above the law and going after their American dream at the cost of others.

If this movie is to be taken as genuine fact then from what I can tell, Heidi Fleiss has a lot of character flaws that I may not like, but is she a villain or a victim? Probably both, but the film is never intimate enough (no pun intended) to give the viewer a real look at the psychology of the character and so in the end what we get is an above average TV movie that exceeds it’s own grasp much like Fleiss because less than two hours is just not enough to accurately convey a realistic portrait of the rise and fall of Heidi Fleiss beyond only the most basic strokes (Still no pun intended.) “Call Me: The Rise And Fall Of Heidi Fleiss Unrated & Uncut” is presented in both an anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) aspect ratio on one side and a full screen (1.33:1) aspect ratio modified to fit standard size televisions. The picture quality is great and the DVD also features a nice English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. English Closed Captions for the hearing impaired and English and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded as options, but there are no value features related to the film on this DVD, which is a shame because wouldn’t be interesting (as well as extremely unlikely) if Jamie-Lynn DiScala and the real Heidi Fleiss did an audio commentary together regarding the dramatization vs. the reality and wouldn’t it be interesting just to hear how DiScala got into character and what Heidi thinks of her performance? I realize it may seem like I’m being sarcastic and perhaps I am, but as good as this film is, it sure would make this DVD a lot more interesting…

The menus are standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. “Call Me: The Rise And Fall Of Heidi Fleiss: Unrated & Uncut” is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

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