Yawn . . . The sex appeal should have been so powerful you could've used an ice pick to cut through it. Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and Lolita Davidovich (sigh. . .) just ooze sex.

Three heavyweights like that should've left knee-deep puddles of pheromones and sweat on the screen.

But they didn't.

The formula for Intersection should have been irresistible.

Steamy Gere (American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman) is the handsome ultra-yuppie Vincent Eastman, torn between the two women who make Middle America sweat and squirm. He has a frosty wife, Sally (Stone), an adoring daughter and Olivia (Davidovich), the luscious mistress who wants him to commit.

Through almost two hours of flashbacks and pseudo-emotional outbursts, audiences follow Vincent's struggle to make a decision. Producer/director Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond) also wants us to wonder what we would do in a similar situation.

I almost took a nap.

You see, almost the whole film is set in the marginally clever idea that your life can flash before your eyes when you are about to die. Unfortunately, the flashbacks are clustered in no particular order.

As the film opens, a well-coiffed Gere in his silver Mercedes is sliding out of control through a country intersection. A terrified hippie family huddles in a stalled VW van and the Mack truck in the other lane can't stop in time. What's a guy to do?

Have a flashback, of course.

From here, it's a mild ride through Gere's emotional life as we watch him pose with his daughter, mistress and architect wife. What is intended as a collage of a man's life becomes a confusing and boring trip. One almost wishes there was a plot road map in Gere's Mercedes.

Pretty soon, I was reduced to wondering about the levels of Grecian Formula in Gere's hair.

Not only does Intersection's plot bumble along, but the characters are fatally underdeveloped. Audiences never learn why the spark has gone out of Vincent's and Sally's marriage or why Sally is so cold and unemotional.

And when, after endless agonizing, Vincent finally decides to commit, the screenwriters never bother to tell us why.

Bring a pillow.