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‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’

This is a tender love-story buried in a raunchy, foul-mouthed, hilarious comedy

Review by Bob Brown
WRITER/DIRECTOR Kevin Smith is so thoroughly a creature of and about New Jersey, it’s as if he’s on foreign assignment when setting this movie in greater Pittsburgh. But if there’s any place comparable to Leonardo, N.J. (site of Clerks, 1994), let it be Monroeville, Pa.
   It has that gritty, bad-weather, crummy-burban feel that is essentially character building for the lovable but chronically rent- and job-challenged creatures who schlep through the real and metaphoric slush. And, except for parts of North Jersey, what more comedic a setting than a steel-gray western Pennsylvania town in the grip of a wet-snow winter? It allows Smith to play with visual comedy, like a car whose snow-encrusted windows bear the unmistakable yellow-ice stain of something (or someone) that couldn’t wait.
   The title alone marks this film as a Kevin Smith special. And the presence of Jason Mewes (the perennial Jay, who plays the instant-on Lester in this farce) virtually guarantees it. Although this film took two tries to work down to an R rating (“on appeal”) from its original NC-17, the results are comparatively tame when judged against what’s available all over the Web for a fee.
   If the title gives one pause, fear not. These people aren’t the hard-bitten deadpan types of the underground economy. Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are just two friends and housemates who are 10 years out of high school and several months behind on their bills. It’s not easy living without lights or hot water. While warming their hands over a bonfire of dunning notices from the electric and water companies, Zack is inspired by the brilliant thought of making a quick buck with a quicky porn movie. The idea occurred to him after a chance meeting with a stranger at a high school reunion, Brandon (Justin Long). He’s a gay porn actor from L.A. who is wild at seeing “Granny Panties,” a name Miri unwittingly earned from a secretly captured clip that is circulating on cell-phones everywhere.
   Why not cash in on her notoriety? The reluctant Miri, who has only a platonic relationship with Zack, slowly warms to the idea when he tells her “to just explain to your private beforehand, ‘Look, this doesn’t mean anything,’” because the brain is not involved.
   The project is bankrolled by Delaney (Craig Robinson), Zack’s coffee-shop co-worker, who agrees to give up his savings for a flat-screen television at the prospect of buying two flat-screens with the promised film proceeds — one for the living room and one for the bathroom (Delaney always wanted to watch TV while… well, the potty-mouth script is part of the fun.)
   The other inducement is that as producer, Delaney gets to audition the cast, which means eyeballing chests other than his wife’s to check for “moles and stuff.” Among the winners are Bubbles (the real-life ex-porn actress Traci Lords), who has a talent for blowing bubbles from an orifice not often used for this purpose; Stacy (Katie Morgan), who enjoys being a little behind in her work; the boyish Barry (Ricky Mabe); and the aforementioned Lester, quick on the draw.
   What follows is a virtual autobiography of Smith’s early days filming Clerks. Instead of a quick-stop grocery, the film set is the coffee shop, with windows blocked out after hours, and a hockey stick used as a microphone boom. The most explicit it gets is some full frontal nudity and mildly simulated sex, but not in any way that would arouse the average reasonably active adult. This is no comic Kama Sutra.
   Rather, it’s a tender love-story buried in a raunchy, foul-mouthed, hilarious comedy (more F-words than you can shake a tube of K-Y Jelly at, so be forewarned). In the course of intercourse for money, Zack and Miri realize that making porn and making love have unintended consequences.
   Smith has a feel for the right kind of cast to pull this off, and Rogen, Smith’s first choice for the role of Zack, is a prime example. His huggable teddy-bear characters are always sweet, even when he’s most suggestive. Banks, although a second choice (Rosario Dawson was first but had to bow out), adds the right note to a nice bad-girl character who has principles when it counts. And the rest of the menagerie is pure Smith, naughty but life-affirming. Two small roles that stand out are Long and Delaney’s wife (Newark-born Tisha Campbell-Martin), whose two minutes toward the end of the film are enough to flesh out why Delaney is the way he is.
   Smith loves to play with the credits on his films, so stay through to the end to see how Zack, Miri and their new-found friends wind up. There are also some goofy Smith acknowledgments just for fun, if you can read fast enough to stay ahead of the rolling text.

  • Rated R on appeal for strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language.