Arizona Kiss

Ring ( Telluride Smile ) dedicates this steamy, pitiless, tough-as-whipcord thriller about a modern Circe who uses sex to enslave a loser and turn him into a murdering swine to James M. Cain, who might have been proud to have written it himself. Macky is a photographer for a Tucson newspaper who believes that the only purpose of journalism is to nail someone, by fair means or foul. He enjoys swilling tequila, parachuting off a 600-foot rock and getting much too close to his source, the temptress who calls herself Alice Malone. Suggesting a way to nail Leo Harker, a retired law-and-order judge who raises fighting pit bulls, Alice makes it possible for Macky to photograph the judge indulging in his bloody illegal sport. But that's not enough: Alice soon blackmails Macky into helping her kill the judge, whom she accuses of torturing her and degrading her sexually. The graphic descriptions of dogs fighting to the death, of Alice's sadomasochistic tendencies and of the horrible method used to dispose of the judge are not for the squeamish. Still, so long as we don't have to meet these nasty folks in person, Ring raising Cain is a rousing experience. (May)