Skin Deep

There’s wit, rudeness, satire, lust and pathos, all effortlessly rolled up together. "Skin Deep" is sort of a filmmaker’s triathalon, and if Edwards doesn’t set any new records, he enters every event. Read full review

Watching it, you feel as if you're being hammered to death with champagne corks. Read full review

Blake Edwards’ Skin Deep has a couple of the funniest moments Edwards ever devised; it has John Ritter’s easy-to-take charm, but it ends up living up to its title far too closely. Read full review

Mr. Ritter is an engagingly comic actor, but the women in his life are so uncharacterized, in the writing, casting and the playing, that the comedy fizzles. All that's left is a movie about a seriously alcoholic writer making a mess of things. Read full review

Ritter lacks the charisma to bring his role off, the slapstick is tiresome, and Edwards' script fails to generate sympathy for Zach or to develop characters. Read full review

But even with Dudley Moore, this movie would probably have fallen flat. At best, Skin Deep is a VCR movie. Rent it when it comes out on tape, fast forward to the best part, and replay the condom scene until you stop laughing. Read full review

Revenge is sweet and Ritter gets his due in any number of silly and embarrassing situations which he handles with nearly perfect comic timing. Read full review

But Skin Deep hasn't the energy level or the inventiveness to sustain the demands of sex farce. There's only one sight gag as funny, involving glow-in-the-dark prophylactics. There's also only one role that's sympathetic. As usual, it's the Julie Andrews role of long-suffering wife, played by Alyson Reed. One last complaint: In the guise of being unflinching about dancing on the edge of outrage, the film reveals a mean streak involving cruel things done to dogs. Skin Deep spends what seems like a lot of time living up to - or is it down to? - its name. [3 March 1989, p.47]

What remain are a few outrageous sight gags built around an unusual glow-in-the-dark device and a nicely conceived encounter with a shy female body-builder (Raye Hollit) that, in its blend of violence and tenderness, recaptures some of the emotional complexity of the Edwards of old. [3 March 1989, p.M]

Skin Deep, the latest and 36th off the line, could sum up his whole checkered career - it's that good and that bad, by turns terrifically funny and terribly flawed. [3 March 1989]

Skin Deep works best when the director delivers his stock in trade -- slapstick and sight gags. [3 March 1989, p.6]

There is one hilarious sight gag involving prophylactics, and one can't argue with the film's sobering message, but otherwise Ritter's character is mostly a bore. [3 March 1989, p.A]