Starring Leelee Sobieski and Tricia Helfer. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, December 7, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Walk All Over Me is a Canadian film, but it is distinctly American in its attitude toward sex. That is, sex is good when it comes to pushing product but let's not get our hands dirty, please.

The premise certainly sells itself. When a small-town cashier named Alberta (Leelee Sobieski) is forced to do a runner, thanks to the latest criminal blunder from a no-good boyfriend, she ends up bunking with her former babysitter, Celene (Tricia Helfer), out West. At first the older woman, well off in Vancouver, appears obsessed with keeping things well-ordered in her super-modern home. But Alberta soon learns that Celene is a neat freak for good reason: she's a successful, and very strict, dominatrix.

There's some amusing tension between the gals as the naive youngster attempts to grapple with a lifestyle and career choice she hasn't previously encountered. (In her old neighbourhood, guys do all the batting around, presumably.) She eventually decides to try on the black leather herself, for fun and profit. Unfortunately for everyone, especially us, the first client she picks, a seemingly gentle fellow (Quebecer Jacob Tierney), is mixed up with some missing mob money. Boy, there sure is a lot of crime in Canada! In any case, the movie ends up devoted to utterly routine chase scenes and centres on an uncomfortable-looking Lothaire Bluteau as a neurotic villain.

The plain-looking picture was directed by Robert Cuffley and written by him with Jason Long, the same team that made the similarly amateurish Turning Paige (which at least showed off Vancouverite Katharine Isabelle's range). But this new movie doesn't do Sobieski any favours. Although this young Helen Hunt look-alike already shook her child-star image in Eyes Wide Shut, she's just not a distinctive enough presence to keep audiences engaged with such a vaguely drawn protagonist. And Helfer drops out of things for so long that it's easy to forget who her character is. Which brings us back to our main point: if your skin-free story has almost nothing to do with BDSM, why get into it in the first place?

Of course, in movieland, as everywhere else, there are subs and there are doms. And one thing's for sure: this Walk was made for booting.