An inept cross between Wonder Boys and the direct-to-video Patrick Swayze thriller Letters From A Killer, Red Letters stars Peter Coyote as an author and Hawthorne scholar who, like Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys, made his name with an acclaimed novel and has coasted on his reputation ever since. But a solid reputation can only take a professor so far, and as Red Letters opens, Coyote is slapped with a harassment suit from a clothing-averse student who helpfully reminds him, "The university doesn't want its students getting fucked, or fucked over." Eager to start anew, Coyote takes a job at a smaller university, and while moving into his drab new apartment, finds himself reading letters (hence the atrocious wordplay of the film's title) sent to the apartment's previous tenant by gorgeous convict Nastassja Kinski. Working his way down the dating ladder, Coyote changes his romantic preference from nubile students to not-so-hardened felons, striking up a friendship with Kinski that eventually develops into something more. Pulp without pizzazz, Red Letters possesses all the worst weaknesses of trashy B-movies—paper-thin characters, appalling dialogue, a contempt for logic—but none of the genre's redeeming pleasures. Although its protagonist is eerily similar to the harried professor at the center of Wonder Boys, Red Letters has none of that film's warmth or affection for its characters. What it does share is a tendency to meander and a loosely structured plot, tremendous liabilities for a film that purports to be a thriller. Pauly Shore obsessives, however, should note that the slang-crazy comedian has a rare, unbilled character turn as the scruffy previous inhabitant of Coyote's apartment.