Richard Crouse

Within the first five minutes of Zach and Miri Make a Porno director Kevin Smith establishes the tone of the next ninety minutes. Mere moments after the opening credits he unleashes bathroom jokes, racial jabs and a sequence involving burning pubic hair. It’s not for the faint of heart, but then again the faint of heart likely wouldn’t be caught dead at a movie about two platonic friends who decide to make a pornographic movie to raise money to pay their bills.

“If it’s so easy why doesn’t everyone do it?” asks a skeptical Miri.

“Because other people have options and dignity… which we don’t have,” replies Zach in one of the film’s better exchanges.

Seth Rogen, Hollywood’s go-to Canadian funnyman, and Elizabeth Banks, Rogen’s 40 Year Old Virgin cast mate, play the titular roommates. When their water, electricity and heat are shut off for non-payment of bills on the eve of their high school reunion their already dire situation gets much, much worse. After a chance meeting with a gay porn star (a very funny Justin Long) they hit on the idea of making dirty movies for fun and profit. Well, mostly for profit. “Paris Hilton makes a night vision sex tape,” says Zach, “and now she’s selling perfume to tweens!” After a casting session turns up some willing actors and actresses they begin production on an ill fated erotic reimagining of Star Wars but as the clothes come off and the cameras roll Zach and Miri reveal much more about themselves than what’s under their clothes.

As usual director Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Mallrats fame, manages to be saccharine and over-the-top vulgar simultaneously—a recipe that Judd Apatow has perfected in recent years—although nothing here approaches the gross out of 2006’s Clerks II. Even a gag about an… unusual cure for constipation comes off as cute. Smith, however, is still better at making us laugh than warming our hearts which is Zach and Miri’s main downfall.

The comedy works more often than not, but when the movie switches to full-on romance mode it flops around more than overenthusiastic actors in amateur porn. Banks has the right stuff to be funny, sexy and romantic on-screen and Rogen displays his usual goofy charm, but Smith’s script has too many gaps in logic—I know, it’s a sex comedy, but it should still make sense—to make the relationship aspect believable, let alone something the audience would really care about.
Zach and Miri Make a Porno features frequently endearing characters, some funny supporting work from real live porn stars—Katie Morgan as a big-hearted but dumb stripper and Traci Lords—and a performance from Justin Long that is guaranteed to become a youtube favorite but it lacks the heart of Rogen’s others films, most notably Knocked Up and Superbad, and gets bogged down when it tries to hammer home its sappy “ain’t love grand” ending.