Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Released: 2008

MPAA rating: R

Run time: 1:41

Being a Kevin Smith fan, I have heard him on several interviews wonder why "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" did not do better at the box office. Before seeing the movie, my initial reaction was "Dude, look at the title!" Regardless of the content of the film, the title alone would keep many people away. Do I agree with him that it is silly that would be the case? Yes, but you can't ignore that fact. I think most of his surprise comes from the fact that this is his first film with A-list stars and that the main story was actually kind of sweet. All true. Of course, now that I have seen the film, I have found that it is much more than the title. Smith is a very gifted writer of comedic dialgoue and has always been a "push the envelope" filmmaker. Both of those traits are fully on display here. Being a Kevin Smith fan (I actually liked "Jersey Girl" and LOVED "Mallrats"), I wanted to love this movie. Unfortunately, even I thought it went a little further than it needed to. The main storyline is pretty relevant to today's economic times: Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are lifelong friends and platonic roommates who can not make ends meet and decide that the key to their economic woes is to make a porn film. Zack rounds up a production team and a cast and off they go. The "sweetness" of the story lies in the fact that Zack and Miri may just find out that they are actually in love with each other. The movie is funny at times and very sweet in others. There are some problems, though. First, the "movie within a movie" IS a porn flick, so the sequence of the movie when they are filming is sometimes, well, pornographic. I am certainly not a prude, but didn't really feel like watching the scenes I was seeing in a "mainstream" movie. Having said that, the absolute funniest, laugh-out-loud scene happens in one of these sequences. Another problem is that even though Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are fine in the movie, their performances are outshined by Jason Mewes and Brian Anderson (Smith regulars) and are greatly outshined by Craig Robinson (from "The Office"), who flat out steals the movie. Smith also fails to realize that, while trying to keep his dialogue "realistic" (regular people use profanities), most women do NOT drop the F-bombs as liberally as his female characters do. So, this is a film that is very funny at times and warm and fuzzy, but you have to put up with some hardcore stuff to get through it.

Grade: C-

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