Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Movie Review (2008)

Written and directed by Kevin Smith, 101 minutes, rated R.

True to form, the new Kevin Smith movie, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” turns out to be every bit as raunchy as its title promises, so much so that no advertisements ran before the movie likely because no advertisers wanted to be associated with it.

For that reason alone, can we please have one of these movies every week?  Probably not, and it’s easy to see why, though for all sorts of reasons that can’t be mentioned in a family newspaper.  Suffice to say that Smith wanted to top the dirtiest comedy ever made for a mainstream audience, and he succeeded.  His mother must be proud.

Or not.  While the movie isn’t a complete bust--it’s sometimes just as funny as you hope--it eventually becomes so garbled by a forced, lovey-dovey subplot, its go-for-broke edge is zapped and you want to gag on the sugary sap that hits near the end.

From Smith’s script, “Porno” stars Seth Rogen as Zack and Elizabeth Banks as Miri, two lifelong best friends who happen to live with each other but who have fallen on such hard times, they can’t pay their bills.

What’s this sexless, Pittsburgh duo to do?  Since getting another job apparently is out of the question--as is the idea of applying for local assistance--they decide to make a porno that will star a handful of friends and strangers, as well as themselves.  As Zack and Miri see it, making the film could lead to quick, easy money, which is just what they need since their electricity has been shut off, along with their heat and water.

The complication to this is so telegraphed, only the numbest boob in the room won’t see it coming: What’s to become of these longtime friends if they do have sex, even if it is onscreen with a crowd of people watching?  Will emotions get in the way?  Will hearts soar?  Or when they come away from the haze of sexual confusion, will they be angry, wounded and bruised?

If it’s the latter, at least Zack and Miri have a colorful vocabulary to fall back on to describe their feelings.  Screenwriter Smith goes out of his way to lace his movie with such a string of expletives, you sit there thinking, “Well, this is informative.  Who knew that if you put this word with that word in reaction to a woman (former porn star Traci Lords) blowing bubbles from a place where bubbles should never emerge that you could achieve a new cultural low?”

While there’s no doubt that achieving those lows can be funny, which Smith proves in a handful of raw, unbridled scenes, there’s also no question that the effect eventually becomes muddied when Smith loses focus by forcing upon us a lame romantic subplot.

Here’s the truth Smith must face--he might have been doing all of this before Judd Apatow (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up”), who now is the reigning king of endearing raunch, but he’s not as good as Apatow at bridging the gap between the gross-out and the human.  Smith actually is rather clumsy at it.  His characters are more believable and likable being bottom-feeding caricatures than they are in being three-dimensional people in search of love.

Which leads us to a larger question--what does that say about Smith?

Grade:  C+