Zack and Miri Make a Porno (18)
Film ReviewsPublished November 25, 2008 at 9:19 No Comments
You could be forgiven for mistaking Zack and Miri Make a Porno, a tale of loveable losers Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri’s (Elizabeth Banks) desperate bid to pay the bills with a career in hardcore porn, for the latest offering from the Judd ‘Knocked Up’ Apatow stable. It shares a superficially crass premise that reveals a level of sentimentality we perhaps wouldn’t usually associate with the sight of an overweight man brandishing a lightsaber dildo. But when the opening titles are punctuated by the start-up of a heavy metal soundtrack and an irate driver comically ploughing his car into a white picket fence, Kevin Smith’s (Clerks, Dogma) signature stamp is established.
Smith, wisely retreated to his roots after the critical and commercial mauling of the sappy Jersey Girl, has often struggled to achieve his desired balance between gross-out and sentiment; a juggling act at which Apatow exels. And while Zack and Miri… does occasionally sink into overemotional posturing, it seems that he has found his feet again.
It’s impossible to quote the funniest lines in print that might be read before the 9pm watershed, but it is the frank and often explicit dialogue between the two leads that gets the most laughs. They validate one another through their friendship. Similarities between Zack and Miri and Dante and Randal from Smith’s previous success, Clerks, are obvious. In both cases, Smith deals with a couple of co-dependant underachievers who turn to one another in the absence of financial or spiritual fulfilment. Now, though, he offers his characters a way out and his outlook seems altogether more optimistic.
Smith seems cautious throughout to curb his sentimental tendencies, and although there are at least two notable occasions when he lets this slip, he is successful on the whole. It’s difficult to accuse a film of being overly romantic when its most heart-warming love scene is followed by a porn star relieving her constipation over her cameraman’s face.
There is something here for established fans (such as a Star Wars skit typical of Smith and a sly nod to his old film-making techniques in Zack’s use of his employer’s coffee shop as a set after-hours) and admirers of the current trend for dressing up romantic comedies as gross-out movies. And for everyone else, well, there’s always Seth Rogen and his lightsaber dildo.
3/5
By Jordan Basset
