FILM REVIEW OF ''ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO" (2008)

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (**** out of ****) is "Clerks" director Kevin Smith's best blue-collar, romantic comedy since "Chasing Amy.” The eponymous protagonists have been best friends since the first grade who make a porno to pay off their mounting rent and utility bills during chilly Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh. Zack and Miri live together in the same apartment, but they sleep in separate rooms and in separate beds. In other words, they do not have sex. They share the rent and the utilities, alternating who pays what each month. Unfortunately, these two slackers barely make ends meet because they blow their bucks on sex toys. The heroine relies on a vibrator, she says, because no man has ever made her cum the way that a vibrator does, while the hero maxs out his credit card so that he can buy a flesh light, a portable pocket pussy that resembles a flashlight. Clearly, if you’re a prude about sex and profanity, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” will probably offend you with its alphabet soup of A-words, C-words, F-words, and s-words that pervade the dialogue.

The first funny gag in “Zack and Miri” involves the use of those palm-sized chemical packets that provide warmth when the user kneads them with their hands. Miri (Elizabeth Banks of "W.") breaks out one as she awaits Zack (Seth Rogen of “Knocked Up”) to join her as she drives them to work. Zack snatches the chemical packet from Miri and unceremoniously stuffs it into his crotch. Later, as they drive to work, Miri smells something toasty and poor Zack realizes that his genitals are on fire and struggles to remove the packet. Miri has to pull off the road, and Zack has to shed his coat to remove the packet from his crotch. When he claims that the packet singed his hairy testicles, Miri laughs out loud at the absurdity of it all.

The action finally cranks up when our protagonists decide to attend their high school reunion. Miri is dressing for the occasion in the back room at a coffee shop called "Bean'N Gone” where Zack works as a counter attendant. Two slackers see Miri changing out of her clothing and freak at the granny panties that Miri has on. No sooner have they video-taped Miri’s derrière than Zack walks in front of their cell phone camera and moon them. Anyway, Miri wants to hook up with former high school football player and all-around jock, Bobby Long (Brandon Routh of “Superman Returns”), while Zack cruises the party. Zack runs into Brandon (Justin Long of “Live Free or Die Hard”) and learns that Brandon is attending the festivities with his homosexual lover. Brandon explains to Zack that he is a gay male porno star and that he is rolling in dough. Predictably, Miri reacts with shock when she discovers Bobby’s sexual orientation.

Our heroine and hero leave the reunion and go back to their apartment. Since Zack forgot to pay the light bill because he had to buy a pair of ice hockey skates, our heroine and hero find themselves plunged into darkness. Miri observes over a brew at a nearby bar that their predicament is what forces some people to prostitute themselves or appear in a porno. Since neither Zack nor Miri have any living relatives, they are not ashamed to flaunt their sex organs. Our protagonists decide to make a porno movie in the hopes that the over 800 people in their high school graduating class will buy a copy for twenty dollars a DVD.

Zack approaches his fellow employee, Delaney (Craig Robinson), about serving as the producer. Delaney scraps his dream of buying a big-screen TV so that he can finance Zack's porno. However, the racially sensitive Delaney, who lives with an abrasive wife with sagging breasts, throws himself into the production when he realizes that he gets to ogle breasts during actress auditions. The first male that they hire is none other than Kevin Smith's co-hort from his "Jay and Silent Bob" comedies. Zack and Miri select Lester (Jason Mewes) strictly on the basis that he can attain an erection almost instantly. Later, Lester saunters around in the nude with his beans and franks hanging out for all to see. The audience that I sat with the second time that I saw “Zack and Miri” nearly choked on their collective breath at the sight of his genitals.

Notorious real-life former teen porn star Traci Lords of "Blade" plays a character named "Bubbles" who farts into a bubble-blowing loop and makes bubbles. Yes, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" has front frontal nudity but the sexual exploits are clearly simulated. Nude bar hostess Stacy (Katie Morgan of "Hot Cherry Pies 3") displays her ample breasts in one scene with Lester as our heroes videotape after hours in their workplace. They lose their first studio because a huckster named Jenkins (make-up artist Tom Savini of “Night of the Living Dead”) took a month’s rent from them but refused to tell them that the building that houses their studio is scheduled to be destroyed. Our resourceful protagonists decide to relocate the setting of their porno to the coffee shop after everyone has gone for the evening.

If profane, randy, politically-incorrect language about sex offends you, then you should skip "Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Seth Rogan is perfectly cast as a wise-acre coffee shop server who has a deep crush on Miri and their romantic involvement in each other takes on a different light when they shoot their own porno. Each is so self-conscious about themselves and absorbed in each other that they forget to remove their clothing. Miri realizes that she has found true love at long last. Smith shoots this scene with an overhead camera as Miri sprawls out on coffee bean sacks. It almost looks like a homage to a similarly shot scene in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon A Time in the West" when Claudia Cardinale laid back on a huge bed with a gauzy canopy.

The usual complications that occur when two people become intimate create problems that drive them apart and forces the shutdown of the movie. Despite the formulaic plot, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is a sweet, sometimes sour, sentimental romantic plot about the wacky way that love works. The 'Dutch rudder' scene between Seth Rogen and Jason Mewes at the end is hilarious.