Vortex

The very accomplished (and self-consciously wry) first 16mm feature by the NY new wave underground film-makers Scott and Beth B finds private eye Angel Powers (poet, singer and playwright Lydia Lunch) - hard boozing, foul mouthed, clad in black leather, and her mind not always on the job - set to solve the mystery of a Congressman's assassination, against a background of serpentine paranoia and 'Star Wars' gadgetry. Bill Rice plays a Howard Hughes-like recluse (in the cadaverous manner of Klaus Kinski) who commissioned the hit to ensure that a defence contract went to a rival. Made on a tiny budget, with striking chiaroscuro visual effects, the movie pulses with a punk sensibility. It meanders and is sometimes chaotically makeshift, but it's all of a part: tough and buzzing with New York zip.