Sex Drive

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

(Spoiler warning: I reveal one facet of the ending in this review. On the other hand, I promise it won't hinder your enjoyment of the movie.)

Sex Drive is both a successful surprise and a big disappointment.

A surprise because the movie is really funny. The actors are all sharp, and the screenplay builds its comedic situations and dialogue much more skillfully than I expected. You'll be laughing -- hard -- at regular intervals, and you might even find yourself quoting some lines with your friends weeks later.

But...it's emotionally dishonest. The central characters, the ones we're supposed to care about, don't deserve to be in such a funny movie because they're not genuine characters. The movie presents a love triangle, but instead of following it through to its logical conclusion -- perhaps doling out a bit of hard-won truth in the process -- it goes for a Hollywood ending and Sex Drive destroys its potential to be a Superbad-style modern teen classic.

There are lots of funny movies out there. What made movies like Superbad and American Pie so successful was that they was really funny and the teenagers actually felt like close to real teenagers, not pawns in an idiotic plot. Remember in the end of Superbad, how Michael Cera finally gets his chance with the girl he likes? She's drunk and behaving like she thinks he wants her to. He realizes he doesn't want her to. "Why don't we just keep kissing?" he asks nervously after she announces what she's about to do to him. Talk about truthfulness.

The dynamic in Sex Drive has the potential to ring of the kind of honesty that would make people take a closer look and maybe get something out of it: Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is in love with his best friend Felicia (Amanda Crew), but she's not interested and actually has a crush on Ian's friend Lance (Clark Duke) instead.

My problem isn't that Ian's actually way better looking than Lance. That's part of the joke: Lance is pudgy and weird but has confidence, and that makes him a ladies man, whereas Ian is helpless. Lance is a terrific, original character, and no one will benefit more from this movie than Clark Duke (coincidentally, a real-life friend of Michael Cera's), who makes a great impression.

My problem is that instead of following this story through to its inevitable conclusion -- Ian realizes Felicia will never be attracted to him, comes of age, maybe finds a girl of his own, while in the process, the millions of teenage guys out there with unrequited crushes might feel a little better -- Sex Drive takes the Idiot Plot/Romantic Comedy/Hollywood Ending route. Ian and Felicia get together despite a lack of chemistry and being totally wrong for each other. Her crush on Lance is totally forgotten. Ian's the male lead, Felicia's the female lead, so they have to get ...