If the porn scenes in Zack and Miri Make a Porno were actually from a real porno, the movie might at best warrant a AA review.
Only the Zack of the movie [Seth Rogen] is convinced he can sell maybe 1,000 pieces of it at $20 a pop. Apparently he’s heard of the $12B a year porn business and actually believes what he’s read. In today’s current porn climate, however, Rogen might get a cold dash of reality because by the time his movie is ready for release, the scenes would already be out there for free on the Internet and Rogen, like every other porn company owner, would be chasing his money and getting the check-is-in-the mail stories.
Such as it is, Rogen, who’s perfected the role of the good natured, unambitious slob albeit with a head on his shoulders, is living an agamous existence in a dump of an apartment with his female buddy Miri [the eminently do-able Elizabeth Banks].
While they share expenses, Zack and Miri [she hates when he barges into the bathroom as she’s taking a shit] are about to get kicked out in the cold because Rogen exceeded budget on the purchase of an expensive flashlight. And it’s very cold where Rogen and Banks live, which is Pittsburgh in the middle of winter. And that gets pretty uncomfortable.
The water’s been shut off as well as the electricity, and they’re keeping warm like hobos by burning wood in a trash can in the middle of their living room.
Like the fire in the can, though, an enterprising idea burns bright. Zack and Miri have just been to their 10th High School reunion. In what’s absolutely the funniest bit in the movie, Banks, playing a pretty woman with a potty-mouth and highly charged libido, runs into a self-obsessed jock [Brandon Routh] whom she’s always had a crush on.
As direct about it as you can be in such matters, Banks tells Routh she wants to fuck him. Except she doesn’t know that Routh has a lover [Justin Long, pictured] who’s also a gay porn star. Playing your typical, effete LA asshole who's putting on the dog and thinking he’s impressing the locals, Long just about steals this picture, and it’s a shame more couldn’t have been made of his character later on.
[A gag reel bit has him comparing his lover’s asshole to a tulip.]
So by now, Long recognizes Banks as “granny panties” from the fact that two wiseasses with a cellphone have just shot an embarrassing underwear video clip of her and put it up on a Tube site only hours before. Envious of her instant fame [200,000 views in the first three hours], Long feels compelled to brag about his fame and the kind of money he’s making as a porn performer.
Which sets Rogen’s wheels in motion about doing a porno, perhaps doing just as well with it and getting out of debt once and for all.
From here, whether the picture remains funny in your mind depends on how much you know about the workings of the porn business and appreciate its unwritten little rules, stereotypes and absurdities.
Rogen, who works in a Starbucks-type coffee house, has convinced co-worker Delaney [Craig Robinson] to invest in the project with money that would otherwise go towards buying a flat screen. Like every other porn investor from time immemorial who’s been talked into parting with his money, basically all Delaney wants to see are some titties.
And the little bit he does see makes him happy enough since he’s been married 20 years to a nag [Rosario Dawson] with saggy boobs. As the enterprising producer, Rogen’s developing a script called Star Whores [a title which has actually been shot for real, at least twice in the porn industry].
On what little budget there is, he’s even come up with surprisingly authentic costumes, and Rogen also feels pretty good about the fact that he’s managed to secure an old warehouse that will double for a studio.
Truer to porn life than you might think, Rogen gets screwed in the leasing deal by a con man [a cameo by makeup artist Tom Savini]. So, even while the movie’s being shot, the guys with the wrecking ball are dismantling the building which has been condemned.
Well, there’s the coffee shop. And to accommodate the change of scenery, Rogen with some guerilla-adaptability and after hours ingenuity, re-writes the lame script, making it even lamer which now will feature hot baristas and the men who would give them cream.
[Kevin Smith regular Jason Mewes, in particular, has the persona of a cocky male porn star down to a science, and another great scene has a drunk Pittsburgh Steelers football fan wandering in on the shoot thinking the store’s still open.]
Director Smith surprisingly lands Traci Lords for a small part as a hardened bachelor party performer who wields an expert strap-on to do one of the guys; and porn star Katie Morgan also lends herself very well as the local ditz who doesn’t mind doing anal.
When it comes ready to do it, Morgan tells Rogen she’s constipated but allows for the fact that one in the butt’s generally very good for relieving such conditions. And you’ve probably already guessed the next sight gag involving the unfortunate cameraman Jeff Anderson who’s on the receiving end.
Where the film’s hardy and rough guy's guy edges turn sappy and sweet, are when Zack and Miri do a scene together and get mentally irregular about it after the fact.
And Morgan certainly doesn’t help issues when she asks Miri if it’s alright if she gets to do Zack. The rest of the picture then becomes emotionally involved in working those love-blossoms complications out. If you’re an impossible romantic, the results will suit you just fine. If you’re expecting more gross comedy, be warned that Smith has now shifted gears on you and turned the whole show into a Frank Capra movie.
