Sex Drive (2009)

2 Discs Special Edition DVD

Sex Drive is a flick I just never got around to seeing in the theaters but, I really wanted to. I have to admit, though, some of the Summit Entertainment fare I have been seeing as of late (no, not Twilight... unless I absolutely have to), hasn't been living up to expectations at all (See: Push, Knowing), so I was a tad concerned with seeing this on DVD. Thankfully my misconceptions were ill-founded because this is surely one hilarious laugh-filled blast of a flick.

What's so great about this film is they find new and funnier ways to take us through a lot of the tired routines of these teen sexy comedies. The characters we get are nothing new, really. We have Ian (Josh Zuckerman), the nice guy who gets walked on by chicks, except for his best friend Felicia (Amanda Crew), whom he's known all his life and have that kind of Zack and Miri kind of bond, but younger a.k.a. he digs her but they're just friends, etc. Ian's other best friend is Lance (Clark Duke), who makes up for his non-gorgeous looks with an abundance of charm and charisma, which is a hit with the ladies. To top it all off this introverted dude has this obnoxious big brother Rex (James Marsden) to deal with, whose constantly busting his balls about not having a girlfriend and/or banging chicks. The only place Ian feels safe with chicks is the Internet, and a one Ms. Tasty who he's struck up an interweb relationship, of sorts, with. So, when Ian's family goes out of town for the weekend, and Rex leaves his most prized possession at home: a 1960 GTO Fastback dubbed "The Judge," Ian decides to take a risk and drive from Chicago to Kentucky to visit Ms. Tasty and finally become non-virginalized (Yeah, totally made that word up. Deal). Of course, Lance has to come along for the ride and, at the last minute, Felicia tags along too in a road trip that none of them will ever forget, and so it goes.

I'm sure from the last paragraph, you can likely deduce most of what will happen at the end, but what's great about Sex Drive is they constantly come up with new and original twists and turns down this beaten path. Writers Sean Anders, who also directed, and John Morris (who adapted from the Andy Behrens book dubbed "All the Way), doesn't really tweak with this teen comedy/road trip genre too much, but they're constantly upping the ante here with Lance's random conquests, Ian meeting up with a hot dancer... only to find out she dances for an abstinence awareness dance team (hilarity) and the constantly random situations that are unfortunately seen by random people, and thus placed on the Internet... like Felicia squatting over a radiator and peeing in it when the GTO runs out of coolant... which happens to be seen by a church-going family passing by. The situations this group finds themselves in is a wonderful aspect to the comedy, but they're only enhanced by the performances of the friends themselves, along with many others.

I had honestly never heard of Josh Zuckerman and the lovely Amanda Crew before this movie, and I had only heard of Clark Duke's name because of his association with the ABC Family popular series, Greek. I have never seen the show, but I still do have some younger fraternity and sorority friends back home, so yeah. I hadn't known much about them before this, but they all formed a wonderful little trifecta, with Zuckerman doing a nice job as the play-it-safe Ian, Duke as the unconventional ladies man Lance and Crew as an equally unconventional chick friend Felicia and the drama and situations that come up between them all are very realistic and performed accordingly. While Zuckerman does come off as kind of a bore towards the beginning, that's really just his character, which he plays off to a T. Although they didn't use him nearly as much as I thought/hoped they would, James Marsden is just a blast to watch as the overbearing jackass brother Rex, whose sole goals in life seem to be giving his brother a hard time and making sure no one screws with his car. This is quite a departure from, well, anything we've seen Marsden in before and, while he wasn't used as much as he should've, this guy has certainly proven that he can more than hold his own in a comedic setting. We saw a lot more of Seth Green here as the unusually sardonic Amish dude Ezekiel, but he was cast just perfectly here and his whole Amish situation adds a lot more to the movie than I expected, with awesome results. Also look for some wonderful smaller turns like David Koechner as a deranged hitchhiker, Bryan Poseihn as a carnie and, two guys I thought they could've used more of in Charlie McDermott and Mark L. Young as Andy and Randy, two dudes who have no problem hitting on every single chick they see, only to fail every time. They both really are a perfect fit and they surely do steal a few scenes here and there.

The film is directed rather assuredly by Sean Anders, whose deft direction is a tad surprising since this is just his second film, and first major film. He gives us some wonderful little tricks with reveals, showing us a funny moment that gets even funnier a few seconds later. He pulls some great performances out of his actors, especially the raucous James Marsden, whose persona on the trailer was something so different than we're used to with him that it was one of the main reasons I wanted to see this in the first place. While it isn't his film debut, it surely is a breakthrough for Anders and I really can't wait to see what he'll tackle next.

Sex Drive is just a blast of a comedy that showcases some wonderful comedic talent both in front of and behind the camera. This film really takes the raunchy teen comedy to another level, but it relies on shock value even less and original comedic situations even more. It's a breath of fresh, yet foul-mouthed air in this tired genre.

I'm not sure why they have this in a two-disc special edition, since there are only four featurettes we get here, but whatever. Mo discs, mo money... We start the features off with Sex Drive: Making a Masterpiece. and they play it off like it's an artsy masterpiece. They have these descriptions of the actors like Amanda Crew as the "Token Girl" and the whole thing is a pretty funny spoof of the general featurette format. It's rather hilarious this whole way through and we get great bits about all of the main players on this movie and it's a great 10-minute piece that kicks these features off.

The Marsden Dilemma is next and it's another wonderful spoof flick that is pretty much devoted to ripping on James Marsden and how Marsden isn't funny and is kind of a dick. It's great that everyone can get into this kind of self-deprecating mode for these special features, because we don't see it too often and, more importantly, we don't see them done nearly as well as this. Kudos, Sex Drive peeps!

Clark: Duke of the Internet is next and it continues the whole trend of the first two, but, obviously, it's about Clark Duke and this one is only a bit under four minutes and not quite as funny as the others, but still worth a look.

The last thing we get here is Killing Time in Hollywood (Florida) and this starts off with "What actors do on their day off when their bored" and it's basically one of the guys, I'm not quite sure who it is, actually, but they have this guy dressed up as Randy "Macho Man" Savage, parading around with a shredded t-shirt, bandana, goofy shades, just like Savage... but an orange thong. The impression is quite spot-on and we see them get people like Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew and James Marsters along for the ride, with Clark Duke filming it all. It's about 18 minutes long and it's hilariously spontaneous and a great way to close out these features.

Sex Drive, while not the most original flick, is a damn funny comedy that pushes this sort of formula to the envelope and beyond. It's a side-splitting riot that proves there can be some new tricks that this old dog of a genre can learn.