Sunday, February 20, 2011

Middle Men: Movie Review

(2009, directed by: George Gallo, written by: George Gallo and Andy Weiss, starring: Luke Wilson)
(Available now on DVD and Blu-ray)




"Middle Men" is caught in between a documentary and pornography.

In "Middle Men", Luke Wilson is a man caught in the middle between legitimate businesses and pornography. Both he and the film are caught somewhere between a documentary and a porno. With an interesting enough story about the beginnings of internet commerce, the film probably gets enough facts right to be able to say, "based on a true story".

Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht humorously play two drugged out "geniuses" with lots of ideas but no sense. When they create internet commerce and apply it to pornography they need straight man Jack Harris (Wilson) to turn it into a legit business. But before long they get him caught up in a world of money, drugs and porn stars, and then everybody needs help climbing out of that. Even the film. It loses some of its structure as we meet Russian mobsters, beautiful women and more money than you can even keep track of.

"Middle Men" is particularly well acted and interesting enough especially about a recent historical story that isn't very well known, that it can mostly be forgiven for its poor structure and confusion of genres. In between the documentary and pornography, we have comedy, crime and drama, and most other genres you can name.