Body of Evidence won't be remembered for classic plotting or brilliant legal gambits. But give it its due: it holds one's attention.

A preposterous erotic thriller from the Basic Instinct fingernails-ripped-my-flesh school, Body of Evidence is shamelessly — and, on occasion, amusingly — unadulterated trash.

Body of Evidence is at its most hilarious in the deadly earnestness with which it unfolds its ludicrous plot, populated by paper-thin characters who range from the underdeveloped to the simply inane. BODY is oddly conflicted by the sheer unpleasantness of its depiction of sex.

Although I have no facts to support my impression, this erotic courtroom thriller looks as if it grew out of Madonna seeing Basic Instinct and saying, “I wanna do one of those."

A courtroom drama built around the charge that Madonna's body is a deadly weapon with which she 'fornicated' a man to death, this showcase for the singer-thesp as femme fatale is more silly than erotic.