The biggest sin Brazen commits is being no more scandalous than an awkward teenage boy noticing the lingerie while walking through Target. It <i>thinks</i> it’s being naughty or <clutches pearls> sleazy, but it’s really just a Halloween costume. It’s an act, a pose. And it’s boring.

Brazen, based on a Nora Roberts novel in a way that reminds me of that one Nora Roberts novel I read that has the same premise, is about crime novelist whose sister is murdered. She quickly learns she was a <clutches pearls>dominatrix cam girl. Can she and the scruffy but devilishly handsome next door neighbor detective find the killer before he strikes again? Can our crime novelist hero sleep over at his place because she’s scared? Will she have to dress like a dominatrix to catch the killer by the end of this movie? <clutches pearls>

This movie is just so drab and slow while trying to be both rakishly romantic and teasingly trashy. Maybe it hits a couple bodice-ripping romance novel moments with the scruffy detective but it fails as trashy spectacle. It does not wallow in the filth like it thinks it does… it just generally circles the drain without ever really committing. Unless *gasp* Alyssa Milano in dominatrix outfit showing <feints at the thought> cleavage is your Wal-Mart version of scandalous.

The most brazen thing about this movie is the title. You can call yourself Brazen all day long but when you shoot for TV-14, you get TV-14. All this trash posing would be ok if the actual mystery were more interesting and if the stakes were well established. But that’s not true either.

No. No reason to watch this tepid Netflix filler. Maybe a die-hard Nora Roberts fan will fall in love with it (or the scruffy but approachable detective next door) but the rest of us have better things to watch.

Score: 62