Running time: 101 minutes
Starring: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Jason Mewes, Craig Robinson, Traci Lords
Rating 5 out of 10
Kevin Smith likes to make the subjects of his movies self-evident, beginning with Clerks and Chasing Amy. No confusion there, right? Nor is there with his latest, the quaint but crude Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Despite its suggestive title, it's essentially a sweet, romantic comedy . . . but with some nudity and a lot of swearing. As endearing as Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are in their title roles, the film relies heavily on crude humour for its laughs, of which there are too few. Rogen is on familiar territory as he plays the underachieving slacker Zack who shares an apartment with his high-school friend Miri (Elizabeth Banks). Their lives have amounted to little since leaving school. He works at the coffee shop Bean-n-Gone but, like Miri, struggles to pay their monthly bills. Things reach a new low when their power and water are cut off. Underlining their failure is their upcoming 10-year high school reunion.
After a photograph of Miri in a frumpy pair of knickers gets circulated online, she becomes an internet celebrity. The recognition of the market for sex coupled with the need for money prompts Zack's idea to make a porn movie. "Porn has gone mainstream, like Coke and Pepsi," he explains to Miri, "but with dicks in it." The central stumbling block for Miri is the prospect of having sex with Zack, something she fears will jeopardize their long but plutonic friendship.
After convincing his work colleague Delaney (Craig Robinson) to stump up some money in exchange for a producer's credit, Zack conducts some auditions and assembles a colorful cast of freaks, including Bubbles (Traci Lords), Lester (Jason Mewes) and Stacey (Katie Morgan). Porn movies make an all too easy target for comedy. Like amateur theatre productions, they allow for plenty of corny acting. And there are always laughs to be had with prospective titles and characters. Zack's original concept for a sci-fi porno called Star Whores, starring Hung Solo and Prince Layher goes awry, leaving him to hastily come up with an alternative.
ZAMMAP builds towards the moment when the pair is scheduled to have sex. Their years of suppressed feelings and denial are not destined to climax with a passionate kiss in some romantic setting, but instead are set to be captured by a hand-held camera on the set of a cheesy, low-budget porn movie. Trying to weave a touching romance into a profane, 18-rated comedy never quite works. The plot itself is childish enough to be worthy of an adult movie, but no one watches a porn film for the story.
Kevin Murphy
