Oct
11
“Sex Drive” Review
Filed Under Movies
I caught a sneak preview of “Sex Drive” tonight. I think it’s easily this year’s “Superbad.” It might even be “Superbetter.” The film had me on the floor, which isn’t bad for a comedy that I hadn’t even heard of a month ago. Last summer was relatively weak as far as comedies go. I think I laughed harder at “The Dark Knight” than I did at “Pineapple Express.” The season was sorely lacking a teen sex comedy — a real one, not that cacamamie “College” movie. “Sex Drive” has at least saved the fall from being a completely joyless three months.
The film is about a sexually inexperienced high schooler named Ian, played by Josh Zuckerman, who looks more like Jason Schwartzman than Jason Schwartzman. He’s met a young lady online named Ms_Tasty and chats with her at length about football practice and his GTO. In truth, he doesn’t play football, and the GTO belongs to his older brother, the outspokenly homophobic Rex (James Marsden). But Ms_Tasty lives 9 hours away, so all the lies he’s telling her in chat shouldn’t blow back on him.
Anyway, Ian’s really in love with his BFF, Felicia (Amanda Crew). She, of course, is crushing on his other friend Lance (Clark Duke) — a sort of chubby lothario with an ascot. When Ms_Tasty invites Ian to come visit her in Knoxville, Lance convinces him to borrow Rex’s car for the weekend. Felicia tags along, thinking they’re going to visit his sick grandmother. And with Ian’s mustached, sombrero-wearing donut costume from his job at Senor Taco in the trunk, they head south.
Road movies are great in that they literally just spin their wheels for an hour or so, as the characters careen from one episode to the next. The conflict doesn’t necessarily build so much as it lands our heroes in one humorous scrape after another. Comedies like “Sex Drive” don’t need a solid structure. Rather, loosely connected scenarios, like partying with some Amish kids on rumspringa, will further the story just fine. Though the plotting may seem haphazard, everything comes together in the final reel, including the donut costume, something that needs to be made into an action figure immediately.
I truly hope this film finds an audience. It deserves to be a sleeper hit. I’ll probably check it out again after it opens next weekend. Where this weekend’s “Quarantine” is probably the scariest movie of the year, “Sex Drive” is doubtless the funniest. Drive, don’t walk, to see it.
-Brad Lohan
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[...] a stick in the mud when it comes to teen sex comedies. I love the criminally unappreciated “Sex Drive” and have encouraged a number of friends to seek out that little gem of a film. But does the [...]