Zack And Miri Make A Porno

Housemates Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miriam (Elizabeth Banks) are facing increasing financial difficulty and after becoming the unwitting subjects of a viral video clip, Zack hits upon a potential solution to all their monetary woes.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Kevin Smith. If you’ve thrilled to Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma or Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, one suspects you'll already know if you’re going to like Zack and Miri..

A rag tag film production crew is assembled. The producer is Zack’s fellow coffee shop employee, Delaney (Craig Robinson), merely because he happens to have a wad of cash. Assorted folk are interviewed for ‘parts’ in the movie and Lester (Jason Mewes), Barry (Ricky Mabe), Stacey (Katie Morgan) and Bubbles (real ex-porn star, Traci Lords) are added to the cast.

Zack and Miri have been friends for so long that the concept of them being involved with each other doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. Digging beneath the obscenity strewn landscape one finds a surprisingly old-fashioned romantic comedy.

Yes, when the rating warns of strong language it means it, there are approaching 200 uses of strong language in the work according to the BBFC, so that’s almost two naughty words per minute including possibly the only word that still seems to have a taboo quality in the language these days. As to the sex, well the odd piece of genitalia pops up here and there but for something purported to be so risqué there is no more raunch than say, Trainspotting or even Love, Actually.

I’ve yet to warm to Seth Rogen’s podgy charms, but Elizabeth Banks shines and maybe this will be her break-out role. Craig Robinson steals the show as the timorous amateur porno producer, replete with disapproving wife. Brandon Routh and Justin Long get fun comic cameo turns at a shrewdly observed High School reunion scene, but as with several gags in the film it is belaboured to death.

For me, Kevin Smith is one of the worst film makers in America. No, I mean he makes good films, he just has less panache with a camera than Ed Wood Jr., but perhaps that just adds to their rather vulgar charm. The supposedly inept porno film-making looks almost indistinguishable from the main feature.

Nobody captures the moribund nature of slacker small business employees better than Smith, and all the abusive repartee between staff and customers should gladden the hearts of minimum wage workers everywhere. Perhaps we can make a case for Smith being the potty-mouth American cousin to Mike Leigh, then again, maybe not.

Add an extra star to my review if you're a Kevin Smith groupie, remove one otherwise. Funny, if you’re in the right mood, and occasionally touching, the predominantly student audience in the cinema seemed very happy with it, even if some of them had too much humour enhancement substances in their veins. I’ll put in a plug for Good Dick though (I can’t believe I just typed that), that’s a film title by-the-by, which does the whole thing so much better.