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Friday, October 31, 2008
Zack and Miri score!
The last word in the title of Zack and Miri Make a Porno will undoubtedly scare some viewers away from the movie, and that will be a shame. They’ll miss Kevin Smith’s best film since Chasing Amy.
Smith’s comedies have always been, oh - cheerfully vulgar, shall we say. He is well known for his raunchy humor, but he always serves it with a healthy dash of mirth, and more importantly, feeling. As the American Pie movies and Judd Apatow’s works (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, etc), have shown, the tasteless jokes may get butts in seats, but the genuine affection for the characters makes the movie stick. So it is with Zack and Miri, even when porno enters the picture.
Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) live together platonically but not comfortably in Pittsburgh. They’re broke. When the power and the water at their apartment get shut off, Zack, in a fit of desperation and inspiration, suggests they make a porno and give new meaning to the phrase “bang for the buck.” However, the screenplay, such as it is, requires Zack and Miri to do the deed on camera. Suddenly, something more than lust is at play.
The story unfolds along fairly predictable lines, but it’s told with such giddiness I didn’t mind that I never doubted the conclusion. As he usually does, Smith casts the movie extremely well, hiring not only familiar faces like Jason Mewes (Jay) and Todd Anderson (the acid-tongued Clerk) , but former porn star Traci Lords and current porn star Katie Morgan, who prove their talent isn’t limited to their libidos.
The go-for-broke award goes to Justin Long (the Mac) and Brandon Routh, (Superman Returns) who play off each other hilariously as a gay couple at odds about how “out” they ought to be. I’d love to be able to quote some of the lines but all the [redactions] would take the fun out of it, you know?
Indeed, some of the humor is so over the top that it doesn’t always co-exist peacefully with the more romantic parts of the story. When Zack and Miri discover they have feelings for each other, it’s not long before Smith lets loose with maybe the grossest gag he’s ever pulled. The effect is jarring - and not exactly in the way Smith intended.
That the movie still works like a charm is due more to Rogen and Banks than anyone else. Like Smith, Rogen loves to shock with a crass one-liner, but he charms just as easily because he’s really a big softie at heart. Banks has never been better. She recently described herself as “a character actress in a leading lady’s body.” That’s not inaccurate, but I prefer to say she’s a first-rate talent with remarkable range. She can both take and tell a dirty joke with aplomb, and as a romantic lead, she is nothing less than lovable.
When she and Rogen play their big scene, they nail the stiff acting of porno movies to a T, and then hit all the right romantic notes to boot. They’re one of the most charming couples of the year, in one of the most charming movies of the year.
Yes, charming. As Smith rightly points out, how many actual porno movies have the word “porno” in the title? This movie will be remembered much more for Zack and Miri than for any porno.
GRADE: A-
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