Risky Business ripoff

Rating: 2/10 (5 December 2004)

I really wasn't bothered by the ad campaign from the studio trying to pass this off as just another teen comedy with elements of porn in it because I think any subject matter can be made into a good film with the right people but what I hate are clueless opportunists that make films for no other reason than to ripoff ticket buyers. Story is about 18 year old Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) who is getting ready to graduate from high school and has no real life except his studies until he notices his new next door neighbor. After an awkward situation where Matthew watches his neighbor from his bedroom window he finally meets Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) and they start to spend time together where they develop a real relationship until he discovers what her real profession is.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
Matthew finds out that Danielle is a porn actress and when he wants to let her know that he still likes her he suddenly meets her former boyfriend/producer Kelly (Timothy Olyphant) who wants her to come back to making films. Things get complicated when Kelly steals $25,000 that was for a foreign exchange student but with the help from his two best friends (Chris Marquette & Paul Dano) Matthew makes a business deal with a porn king named Hugo Posh (James Remar) where they can raise money making a sex education video for high schoolers.
This film is directed by Luke Greenfield who is making only his second attempt at being at the helm of a film with the first being the Rob Schneider comedy "The Animal" and as silly as that is it looks like a masterpiece compared to this idiotic nonsense. A complete blatant ripoff of "Risky Business" but without the visual skill and intelligent script that helped make that film a mini classic. There are so many things that are taken from the Tom Cruise film that it would be impossible to list them all but I can point out two with the first being actor Olyphant being the "Guido the Killer Pimp" character. The second is the music with the background score being eerily like Tangerine Dream and at one point the hit Muddy Waters song "Hootchie Cootchie Man" is played and that was very prominent in the 1983 film. Hirsch is supposed to be 18 years old but he's able to walk into strip joints and porn conventions without ever being asked for ID and practically every adult character is portrayed as innocuous to everything going on around them. With the exception of a few quick shots this film doesn't even have the gumption to have much nudity in it and it's one of the most tame teen sex comedies I've ever seen and I watched the unrated version! Hard to imagine this film has a cleaner version, what would be the point? Every second that Hirsch's character is on screen I kept expecting him to put on some sunglasses and say "What the F***" because the screenplay for this is totally devoid of any type of originality. From being funny and intelligent to some sort of exploitation fare this film fails on every level and doesn't seem to have the nerve to try something creative. Avoid at all costs!