Review of Sex Drive (2008) by Lester Y — 16 Mar 2010

This lightweight, hormone-challenged but entertaining coming of age comedy of about a shy, suburban, 18-year old virgin who desperately wants to give his cherry the boot boasts the usual gross-out gags, genital jokes, and humiliation humor. Every generation gets a movie like this and "Sex Drive" is fairly harmless despite its R-rating for some nudity and profanity. Unless you watch the unrated version, the theatrical cut is no where near as raunchy as either "American Pie" or "Porky's." Nobody gulps semen-flavored drinks a la "American Pie" and the equivalent of the "Porky's" female shower room scene has upper frontal nudity only. The unrated version contains gratuitous nudity. Actually, "Sex Drive" could qualify as a remake of director Rob Reiner's "The Sure Thing" with John Cusack. "The Sure Thing" was about a character on a road trip to get laid and a platonic girlfriend accompanied him for the trip. Of course, they hated each other in "The Sure Thing," but in "Sex Drive" they are such friends that they don't want sex to destroy their friendship.

"Never Been Thawed" director Sean Anders and scenarist John Morris have fashioned a rather funny road trip of errors that contains several surprises. The protagonist is sympathetic as well as likable, and the gallery of charactersâ??both friendly and hostileâ??is interesting. Anders and Morris resort to the usual profanity, but there isn't that much T & A. One scene shows a group of girls flaunting their breasts backstage. The dialogue is often hilarious. One character tries to guess what a foxy chick has for fur and speculates aloud to our hero: "There could be a little Hitler or just a full, nasty Chewbacca." The most surprisingly part of "Sex Drive" is the concert that our heroes attend in an Amish community while they are having their car repaired.

Ian (Josh Zuckerman of "Lions for Lambs") has a wet dream as the film unfolds. He shares his bedroom with his younger brother and is relieved when he realizes that his sibling doesn't know that he has ejaculated in his undies. Ian throws the soggy underwear at the laundry basket, but he misses. Moments later his older brother Rex (James Marsden of "X-Men") rags him out and assures him that if he isn't ready in a flash that he cannot ride to work with Rex. No sooner does Rex realize something is wrong than their father and his future wife walk into the bedroom and greet the guys. The younger brother gets up to congratulate his father's fiancé with an embrace, but poor Ian cannot move because he has nothing on from the waist down. Incidentally,Anders and Morris pull a variation of this joke in "She's Out of My League." It seems that Ian doesn't have a girlfriend and older, obnoxious, homophobic brother Rex warns him that he will become gay. Complicating matters is that his younger brother dates a girl that Ian works with at a donut shop in the mall.

Meanwhile, Ian has been chatting on-line with a gal nicknamed Ms. Tasty (newcomer Katrina Bowden) who lies about being a sexy swimsuit model, while Ian claims to be a football player who benches 300 pounds. Ian's best friend Lance (Clarke Duke of "Superbad")encourages Ian to drive to see Ms. Tasty in Knoxville, Tennessee, some nine hours away when she offers to go all the way with him if he will bring his GTO. Ian's only friend who happens to be a girl, Felicia (Amanda Crew of "John Tucker Must Die") comes along for the ride and Ian lies that he is going to visit his ailing grandma who is suffering from foot cancer. Along the way, they wind up getting stranded when they think that their car is out of water. Felicia suggests that they urinate into the radiator, but Lance and Ian cannot provide enough liquid to get the car back to running. Felicia finds herself urinating into the car. Predicably, a family of four cruises up and one little boy takes a picture of Felicia that winds up in the Internet on a blog.

Half-way to Knoxville, our heroes break down when the GTO blows a gasket, but they luck up and run into an Amish grease monkey Ezekiel (Seth Green of the "Austin Powers" movies) who repairs it for no charge. Eventually, Felicia learns what the objective of Ian's mission is. As it turns out, Ms. Tasty has little interest in Ian, but she positively salivates at the car that Ian drives, his older brother's fireball red GTO. She operates a car thief ring and tries to steal Rex's ride. Seth Green is terrific in a supporting role as a sarcastic Amish auto mechanic. James Marsden has a field day blurting out anti-gay dialogue.

"Sex Drive" isn't bad for the initiation saga that it is and everything works out for Ian and Felicia. The James Marsden character takes a 180 degree turn and Lance does what you would least expect of him, too.