Some Campy Crime-Fighting in ‘The Huntress’

Even though it takes place during its first five minutes, the USA movie of the week “The Huntress” has a plot development so exciting and unexpected, so rare in these days of trite storytelling, that it would be a sin to give it away here.

Suffice to say, then, that the movie concerns the feisty widow and teenage daughter of a modern-day bounty hunter. And because the man was tactless enough to die leaving his family in the throes of imminent financial ruin, the desperate pair decide to follow his career path and become snappy, gun-toting bounty hunters themselves.

From that point on, the show fulfills an archetypal male fantasy: watching a couple of strong, sensuous females beating up people and playing with guns.

It’s “Tarzan and the Amazons” minus Tarzan and with the streets of Los Angeles instead of the jungle.

Not surprisingly, the daughter is better at hunting dangerous criminals than her mother. After all, she’s had to endure everyday life at a California high school. “You were always a brave little thing,” says Mom with pride a few hours before Brandi, her tiny frame bursting with contained anger, arrests her first prostitute in a scene that brings to mind a Buster Keaton short.

Told with verve by a sleepless camera that never ceases to move forward, and peppered by generous glimpses of sexual innuendo, a crass scene involving urination and a nasty fight sequence that is pretty hard to stomach, “The Huntress” does everything in its power to, er, entertain.

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The show peaks whenever screenwriter Bruno Heller focuses on the comedic aspect of these two women’s everyday life, as they try to muster a job that is usually done by a bunch of good-for-nothing tough men. A number of subplots involving a deranged assassin and a victimized prostitute take away precious time from the movie’s best assets: Annette O’Toole as the insecure, out-of-control mother, and Aleska Palladino as her indomitable sidekick. Both actresses place “The Huntress” safely above its rivals in the wacky universe of post-Quentin Tarantino B-movie exploitation.

* “The Huntress” airs tonight at 9 on the USA Network. The network has rated it TV-14-VLD (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14 with special advisories for violence, coarse language and suggestive dialogue).