The Amy Fisher Story

The American media went on its 1992 feeding frenzy over a sensational shooting in Long Island. A 17 year old high school student named Amy Fisher knocked on the door of a suburban home that May and shot the woman who came to the door. The victim, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, was the wife of the true love of Amy Fisher's life. The degree of Joey Buttafuoco's involvement in the story has never been clearly established. Clearly he didn't take any part in planning or approving of the shooting, but the controversy centered around whether he had slept with Amy or not. Amy said he did. Amy said a lot of things, and slept with a lot of men, so he was the perfect kindling for a media conflagration. The tabloid papers and the reality shows seemed to talk of nothing else for months. I was living in Europe at the time, and even I seemed to hear and read of it every day.

In December of that year, all three television networks aired versions of the Amy Fisher story. NBC ran one with Noelle Parker playing Amy as told in Amy's own words. CBS ran one with Alyssa Milano as a crazed Amy in Joey Buttafuoco's version of the story. ABC ran one based upon the coverage of NY Post writer Amy Pagnozzi, which essentially handled the drama from a "he said, she said" perspective, pulling the viewer from one viewpoint to another without a lot of judgment. That allowed the actors to portray many sides of each character, and Drew Barrymore somehow managed to rise above the sensationalism to portray Amy as a complex and credible person.

NUDITY REPORT

There are three close-ups of body parts in a sex scene: a breast, a butt, and a pubic area. None of them could be clearly attached

DVD info from Amazon.

no widescreen (made for network TV)
no features

It is probably the best of the three TV movies, for what that's worth, but the marketing is pure hokum. The box says "features explicit and uncensored footage not seen in the original television broadcast. Bonus material: additional nude scenes within the movie"

This extra material is, in fact, a damned hot sex scene between Drew and the actor playing Buttafuoco, while re-enacting Amy's version of the story, but the nudity consists of very brief looks at extreme close-ups, and those body parts could belong to just about anybody except Marlon Brando. In the shots where the audience can clearly identify Barrymore, she has all vital parts covered. She wears a dress in the scene.

The Critics Vote

no reviews on line

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.4

With their dollars ... made for broadcast TV

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C. It's a watchable TV movie-of-the-week from 1992.