Zack and Miri Make a Porno Review
by Jerry Saravia (faustus_08520 AT yahoo DOT com)July 21st, 2010
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Four stars (A)
Kevin Smith had me at Zack and Miri. Those two names seem so distinct, so unusual for a romantic comedy. Then Smith really had me at hello with "porno." Kevin Smith may not be one of the gods of cinema, but of the funny, outrageous bone, he's got me in sidesplitting mode. "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is possibly his raunchiest and tighest comedy yet, containing more laughs than "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and the last Clerks movie combined. It is also an emotionally well-rounded flick, never losing sight of its characters or their motives and never with a judgmental eye.
Zack (Seth Rogen) is a barista at a local coffee shop, buying useless junk online and never saving enough to pay for rent or utility bills. Miri (Elizabeth Banks) is Zack's roomate, and they have known each other since first grade. Speaking of utility bills, their water and electric is unexpectedly turned off. All this happens before they embark on their high school reunion where Miri's longtime crush turns out to be gay and Zack is merely interested in handjobs. Since there is lack of funds to turn their utilities back on, Zack and Miri decide to make a porno movie! With the help of Zack's fellow barista-turned- producer, Delaney (Craig Robinson), they decide on a porno version of "Star Wars" called "Star Whores," complete with amateurs (Jason Mewes is at his non-Jay best as a sex maniac) and strippers (the latter includes Traci Lords who has a scene with a bubble that is tastefully done in the old John Waters fashion). When the flatulence hits the fan and the crew lose their mock soundstage at an abandoned building, Zack comes up with the idea of shooting a different movie in the coffee shop!
Kevin Smith is just making an old-fashioned romantic comedy at heart, but the outrageousness of making porn in a coffee shop after hours really cranks up the laughs. And the scene of Zack and Miri having sex in their big sex scene together is not clumsily handled by Smith - he shoots it with sensitivity and in facial close-up. It is enormously aided by the casting of Seth Rogen and the spirited Elizabeth Banks who have such undeniably sweet chemistry and imbue such genuine emotion that they are the most charming couple since Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck in Smith's "Chasing Amy."
"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" has so many fast and furiously paced scatalogical gags (all of them hilarious) that it ranks as vintage Kevin Smith all the way. Nobody can write foul-mouthed laced fart jokes, sexual jokes and many other below-the-belt jokes with so much sincerity to make you wince and laugh at the same time. But what really hits below the belt (pardon the pun) is Rogen and Banks in a top-flight romantic comedy that is equal parts profane and touching. Yeah, you'll see the ending coming for miles but never has the inevitable feel-good ending in this genre felt so good.
Email me with questions or comments at [email protected] or at [email protected]
More on 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
