A sweet and funny 'porno'

“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” has caused a bit of stir with just its name. Around the country some newspapers and advertisers have refused to run the full title and a multiplex chain in Utah banned the film.

This review could easily become how the reaction to the film's title says a lot about our country’s hang ups on sex, and unwillingness to talk directly with children about the subject matter, but that really isn’t writer/director Kevin Smith’s point in making the movie.

“Zack and Miri” isn’t an indictment of the United State’s puritanical ideals. Rather, it is what Smith, the writer and director of comedies like “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma,” does best: naturalistic, if crude, dialogue that is smart and low-brow at the same time.

When you get past the vulgarity strewn dialogue and outrageous humor, the film turns out to be a surprisingly sweet comedy about two platonic friends who when they can’t afford to pay their bills decide to make an amateur porn film and in the process realize they love each other. Leave it to Smith to turn making porn into the basis for a romantic comedy.

Seth Rogan (“Knocked Up,” “Pineapple Express”) and Elizabeth Banks (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “W.”) star as Zack and Miri, who through a chain of events - including a visit to a high school reunion and unexpected youtube fame from a cell phone video -conclude that porn is the answer to their financial woes.

Smith’s brand of comedy has a niche following that has never quite broken wide open, but his films paved the way for producer/writer/director Judd Apatow, the reigning king of smart low-brow comedy. It is fitting that Smith is borrowing Rogan, one of Apatow’s go-to guys.

Rogan, with his an easy-going likable persona and his unforced way of delivering fast paced, vulgar dialogue, seems to be the ideal actor to star in a Smith comedy. He hasn’t shown extraordinary range yet, but Rogan does what he does very well. His timing allows the dialogue to feel spontaneous and real rather than scripted.

Banks has the same completely natural quality and ease with the obscenity filled dialogue. The two leads have tremendous chemistry and make the film’s basic premise work. Smith is notorious for hating ad-libbing, so credit Rogan and Banks for making it seem like everything Smith wrote is just popping into their head before they say it.

Many have noted this is just another example of the fantasy of the fat geek getting a girl way out of his league, and while that may be true, Rogan and Banks have a rapport that is believable. When they finally do have sex for the camera it is an unexpectedly touching moment.

Rogan and Banks are surrounded by a gallery of funny supporting players including real porn actors Kate Morgan and Tracey Lords, and Smith regulars Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson. Craig Robinson (Darrell on “The Office”) is a scene stealer as the “producer” who agrees to bank roll the project as long as he gets to sit in on the casting process.

Justin Long (the Mac guy) has a hilarious cameo as a gay porn actor at Zack and Miri’s high school reunion. The scene, beyond being funny, is refreshing because it doesn’t have the nasty homophobic after taste that too often comes through in scatological comedy.

Now as one should rightly expect from a movie called “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” there is sex and nudity, but it is no more extreme than average R rated movie sex. There is some full frontal male nudity, but it is played for laughs.

The film’s language and in one case, willingness to go to the lowest lows for a laugh, is likely to be more offensive than the sex. Of course anyone leaving the film offended can’t say they didn’t know what they were getting into. This is definitely a case of truth in advertising.

What may shock people expecting nothing more than a laugh fest is not only will they laugh, but they may just find themselves getting emotional involved in the characters. Now that’s something new for a porno.