Ever since the Judd Apatow crowd made it OK to release R-rated comedies again, a flood of generic rip-offs have entered theaters (College, anyone?). Despite surface similarities to those bombs, Sex Drive gives Apatow and Co. a run for their money.
While Sex Drive appears at first glance to be a hodge-podge mix of Superbad and Road Trip, the film’s cliché-free writing and solid character work elevate it from just a run-of-the-mill teen comedy to a movie jam-packed with laughs.
The film starts off with a hilarious sequence in which Ian (Josh Zuckerman, Lions for Lambs) envisions himself not just bench pressing 300 pounds, but doing so while receiving oral sex from his dream girl. The scene is a great way to kick things off, and the movie hardly lets off the gas pedal from there.
Ian has been flirting with a girl online, bragging about his exploits. He tells her he’s a football player (his profile shows his head Photoshopped onto a buff body) who has been hitting the weights hard and owns a ’69 Pontiac GTO (it’s actually his brother’s).
With the promise of losing his virginity looming, Ian and his friends drive down to meet his online dream girl. Along the way, they attend an abstinence rally complete with scantily clad dancers gyrating suggestively; are chased by an angry, scorned redneck; and run into a group of Amish teens in the middle of rumspringa, a time when Amish teens are allowed to run wild, experiment with drugs and alcohol and indulge their wild sides before deciding whether or not to continue their previous way of life.
This particular rumspringa includes girl-on-girl kisses, keg stands, breast-flashing and a girl who punctuates every sentence by screaming, “Rumspringa! Woo!”
Ian’s hyper-masculine brother, Rex (James Marsden, 27 Dresses) and Ezekiel (Seth Green, Family Guy), the sarcastic Amish man with mysterious knowledge of how to fix any car problems, both vie for comic supremacy among the film’s minor characters.
Rex’s constant attacks on his bother’s perceived homosexuality are consistently creative, never ranging into stale and over-used territory. His bright orange GTO, called “The Judge,” has a delightfully misogynistic license plate reading NOFTCHX.
Marsden is a treat to watch; he’s really allowed to let loose as Rex. His discovery that his car is missing culminates in him absolutely destroying everything in the empty garage and attempting to drop-kick the half-open door, missing by two feet. It’s great slapstick and manages to avoid staleness by keeping the scene short.
Similarly, Green’s performance of Ezekiel’s excessively dry humor is pitch-perfect. His initial meeting with Lance (Clark Duke, Greek) allows the audience to get in on the joke; it explains that sarcasm was what he missed most about non-Amish life. As a result, each successive line where he snaps at a character with an underhanded compliment is funny instead of coming across like the musings of a total jerk.
While the two supporting characters provide gut-busting laughs whenever they appear, they would be useless without likable characters to fill in the gaps. There is some excellent best friend chemistry between Zuckerman’s charmingly sweet Ian and Duke’s over-the-top goofiness as Lance.
Lance provides real opportunity for Duke to shine – playing the smooth, ladies-man type fits him, even though he doesn’t look like the traditional Hollywood archetype for a Casanova. During his house party, he carries a cigar and wears a Hugh Hefner-style pajama set and an ascot, effortlessly charming every woman in the place.
Sex Drive truly becomes more than just the sum of its parts by the film’s end. The great performances turned in by Marsden, Green and Duke provide consistent laughter, and the budding romance between Ian and Felicia (Amanda Crew, John Tucker Must Die) creates a believable plot thread to tie the film together. Though the late-October release falls outside the typical time frame for comic raunch, Sex Drive holds up to any similar genre titles from this summer.
tripp.laino@yahoo.com
RATING 4 1/2 out of 5 stars
