Bland "Risky Business" Rip-off. (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2004)

The a variation on other popular 80s teen films, The Girl Next Door is 2004's answer to Risky Business (not only does the story model it, but there are many subtle references to it), only the latter proved to be a much better movie.
Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is much like Joel Goodsen. He's a smart kid who follows the rules, but once he's willing to test his limits, he shares in many crazy adventures. Like Joel, these adventures get him into a world of trouble.
However, unlike Joel, Matthew is more of a "geek" by today's standards. He's student council president (although I thought that was an honor awarded through a popularity contest), slated for a future at an Ivy League School, and has two equally unadventurous friends. He thinks his adventures will come from hanging out with the popular kids, but instead, it comes from a chance meeting with The Girl Next Door.
On the other hand, Joel was never really an unpopular kid, and didn't aspire to be on of the in-group, either. He was just one guy who had to test the rules and be willing to take chances to have some fun.
Although it is a variation on 'Risky Business,' The Girl Next Door is catering to modern standards of parental safety. Even though it earned an 'R' rating in the U.S., there are is no real nudity, and surprisingly, no references to drug use. But more importantly, The Girl Next Door is not a prostitute, instead catering to the hormonal raging teen audiences (especially male audience) with a safer version of the promiscuous girl. Whereas the girl in Risky Business was a prostitute, here, she is merely a porn star.
So, when Matthew meets Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), his new next door neighbor for the time being, she shows him some good times, trying to get him to toss out his inhibitions. They have good times together. But about the point that Matthew's friend (this film's equivalent to Miles), Eli, tells him that the pretty girl next door is actually an adult film star, the movie becomes far too ludicrous and starts to fall apart.
First is the tired fantasy of young men in today's films that they will suddenly meet a girl of a promiscuous profession, the same aspirations of Kenny Fisher in Can't Hardly Wait, of the entire gang in American Pie, and so forth. It is really a boring story line that today's films can't seem to do much with, let alone leave it out of the movie altogether. Here, it becomes even more ridiculous.
For Matthew, it leads to a confrontation between Matthew and Danielle's former producer (Timothy Olyphant) who has big investments riding on Danielle's performances. But, these hefty investments fall through when Danielle decides to give up the trade on Matthew's urging that she's better than that, Kelly (the producer) comes looking for Matthew. He steals the money Matthew has invested for a Cambodian exchange student and meddles in an important speech he must give for a Georgetown Scholarship. Actually, we can once again see the safety of this movie, since Guido "The Killer Pimp" was a much more dangerous adversary in 'Risky Business' (even going so far as to shoot at Joel as he is driving away from the restaurant in the chase scene).
The movie wavers between the boring and ludicrous as Matt starts to get into more trouble than he can bare, needing a plan to make fast cash. So, fulfilling the male teen fantasy is all this movie hopes to do (playing out more like a wet dream than a movie...notice the fascination with proving male worthy by size of penis in the finale when Klitz's friends are watching his part in the movie they make) when Matt and his friends use some of Danielle's connections to create a porno film on the night of their prom. This is about the point when you can just throw you hands up and forget about expecting anything good to come out of this cop out ending. Blah...blah...blah, Kelly tries to put a stop to it (how he knew about the movie or got his hands on the tape is something the writer's never bother to clue us in on) and threatens to show it to Matthews parents who are happy with it (you'll see why), everyone is happy in the end, and it works out better than expected.
In Risky Business, on the other hand, nothing was ever as so much in-your-face as it is here. Here, the movie is riddled with stereotypes and conventional teen movie elements: the popular crowd of horny guys and easy girls; the exceptionally horny and stupid friend (Eli); and the wholly stupid situation that will help them solve all of their woes (the sex movie).
With Risky Business, Joel and his friends weren't horny morons that craved to be part of the in-crowd. Joel just wanted to be with a beautiful girl, and he got what he asked for. Except in dealing with a prostitute, you had more reason to believe that Joel's adversary would be a violent one (as compared to say, Kelly, the porno producer who likely has ample opportunity to make other money, but wastes all his time on a high school kid). The problems that Joel confronts are more suspenseful (getting suspended from school, getting kicked off a student project, having his dad's car fall in a lake, getting robbed, and blowing his college admissions interview).
Here, Matthew screws up his speech for Georgetown and is robbed of 25 grand in an impossible situation (you need two signatures and proof of identification to clear out an account that big...i doubt even a charmed teller would let that slide if she was so worried about her job afterwards). The whole movie just becomes so utterly stupid. Best you save your time for "Risky Business."