Spritztour

This is set in modern times near Chicago and is a raunchy teenage comedy about a nerdy 18-year-old boy determined to lose his virginity. His adventures on a weekend trip to Tennessee include some Old Order Amish, which is why I watched the film.

Ian Lafferty (Josh Zuckerman) is a sincere kid who is bullied by his older brother, Rex (James Marsden), who mocks Ian's sexuality. Ian's best friends are Felicia (Amanda Crew) and Lance (Clark Duke). Ian would like a romantic/sexual relationship with Felicia, but she is interested in Lance. Lance is a confident operator who seems to be able to manage any situation, especially with girls.

Ian has developed an Internet relationship with Ms. Tasty, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He portrays himself as a major football player with a hot 1969 GTO (that actually belongs to Rex).

The movie follows the experiences of Ian, Lance, and Felicia after they steal Rex's car and head to Nashville "to visit grandma," as the guys tell Felicia. There is much crude language related to sex and other bodily functions, combined with flashes of skin along the way mixed with various adventures. One major event unfolds when the car breaks down, and a helpful Old Order Amishman, Ezekiel (Seth Green), offers to help and takes their car back to the Amish community where he has an auto repair and body shop. It appears Ezekiel spent a few years in Rumspringa. While there, they attend a wild Saturday-night rock concert in the community. Lance falls in love with an oversexed Amish girl named Mary (Alice Graczyn).

When they finally reach Nashville, they discover Ms. Tasty (Katrina Bowden) is not what she seemed on the Internet, and everyone ends up in jail overnight until bailed out by Mary, the Amish girl. Everything resolves properly at the end.

"Sex Drive" is R-rated for a reason -- mostly vulgar language and some sexuality. It was actually funnier than I expected. I imagine 16-year-old boys in 2008 loved it. One feels a bit like a teenager watching it.

The Amish portrayals, of course, have no connection to reality. There are buggies and plain clothes, but Mary's hair spills down to her waist. There are references to Rumspringa and shunning, but that's about the extent of cultural acknowledgment.

So there was a screening of Sex Drive at the theatre, so I thought "what the hell?"

From the preview, I thought it could have gone one of three ways: 1. A horrible attempt at an R-rated comedy in the same fashion of a pretty good comedy a decade ago. (Like College tried for American Pie, and failed) 2. A mediocre R-rated comedy with bits here and there. 3. A movie that knows what it's going for and hits its mark.

I would have to say, this movie is very close to #3. The movie isn't a great movie, but it has no delusions on what it is. With the plot of a guy driving cross state just to get some ass, there's not a lot of directions you can go with it. The makers know this, so they make the best of it.

No real need to stress much on the story. It's simple, basic, predictable. Bad? I wouldn't say that. The story is really more of a momentum pusher than anything. It's really only there to prevent this from being a series of jokes and gags just jumbled together. There's no real big twist, a few lessons to be taken form it, but they all have been done before. You can pretty much tell what's going to happen at the end within the first 15 minutes. But the story isn't really the important thing here, so no real points taken off for that.

All the actors are good. Clichéd, yes, but they are likable. The goofy, virgin lead guy who's trying to get some tail is played wonderfully by Josh Zuckerman. Pulls it off flawlessly with all the awkwardness and uncertainty that the character would have. Amanda Crew is also really good at the "BFF" of Josh's character. The two have pretty good chemistry, even with all their awkwardly close moments. It isn't perfect, but being in some of those awkward situations, they were (while pushed a bit) familiar.

A surprise is James Marsden. You may remember him as Cyclops from X-Men, and he pulls off a great punk-ass older brother with a sense of humor of his own. He is the typical ass hole older brother in these kind of movies, but he pulls it over very well. Seth Green just seems like he's cruising through the movie. I think he's got a lot of talent and I knew even if the movie was going to be bad, he would provide a good set of laughs. And as a sarcastic Amish engineer genius, he's just fits in this movie seamlessly.

But I have to give a lot of credit to Clark Duke. His first real movie. He was a party extra in Superbad, if I'm not mistaken, the one who called McLovin' a bad ass. Like Seth Green, he just seems to glide through. He also has great chemistry with Josh Zuckerman. You can tell the two of them just had a really good time together on this. He is the suave ladies man who's guiding his pathetic best friend on his verge of losing his virginity, while getting some action himself. He doesn't have the look of the typical character, but he pulls it off excellently.

I put a lot of emphasis on the characters and actors. They were the backbone of the movie. Not the story, but the characters. There's also a hand full of supporting characters that do a good job at their parts, and an unwelcome (well, for me it was unwelcome) appearance by Fall Out Boy.

There are few things worse than a comedy that's not funny. There have been a serious excess of those as well. Dane Cook just had a movie a few weeks ago, and that was a haggard piece of crap. I actually have to say though, I laughed quite a bit in this movie. With the plot, there are going to be quite a few of the sex jokes, involving spooge, penises and homosexuality. Most of them though actually delivered. I can't actually say there were too many flat moments with the jokes. Yes, there were some, but the jokes that worked out-weighed those that didn't.

The climax got really over-the-top, but it did continue on with the laughs, and was satisfying. The closure did take a bit longer than necessary, but didn't drag. The movie was actually well paced and I was never bored.

This is no Superbad. It's not anywhere in that league. I walked out of this movie saying "This is 2000's Road Trip." No, Road Trip wasn't a masterpiece or one of those comedy powerhouses, but it was really good for what it was going for. An over-the-top, R-rated comedy. See it with a group of friends in the theatre. Definitely see it with a crowd, it will probably make it that much more enjoyable. 3.75/5

Also, if you saw the trailer and had no interest, then you probably would want to skip it. It has it's intended audience, and will probably please those people and few others.

I saw Sex Drive at a sneak preview presented by my university. It's a seemingly typical teen sex comedy in the vein of Superbad meets Road Trip. Zuckerman plays Ian, a young virgin with no luck with the ladies, a crush on his childhood friend Felicia (Crew), a jerk of an older brother (Marsden), and is best friends with an Austin Powers-esquire Casanova by the name of Lance (Duke). On the internet, he poses as a football player while courting a mysterious girl online. When the girl invites him to go "all the way", he steals his brother's GTO and heads to Knoxville with Felicia and Lance. Ian's character has the usual nerdy teen virgin-in-a-movie problems: falls for the wrong girls, takes few risks, gets caught in embarrassing sexual situations. On the road trip, they run into a series of hilarious, awkward, and weird situations. And on the way, they discover that sex isn't the most important thing, and that true love can be found in both odd and familiar places.

It's not exactly stunningly original, but it's still a hilarious film. The three leads do a pretty good job, Lance being a particularly funny character. Marsden and Green steal the show in all the scenes they're in, and all of the characters in the film are interesting, even if most of them are stock characters. The script is also well-connected, with most of the characters being connected to the larger plot, and combines wit, ribaldry, and straight adult humor well. Every gag sequence gets big laughs, and the comedy never slows down or dies out. The internet cut-aways are especially hilarious supplements.

It's refreshing to see a genuinely adult comedy not coming from the Apatow crew or McKay and Ferrell. Although it lacks star leads and filmmakers and will probably drop under the radar, I definitely recommend Sex Drive to anyone looking for a big laughs.

I loved every minute of this movie!! If you are looking for a non-stop constantly-falling-out-of-your-seat film, then Sex Drive is perfect for you. It is an instant teen comedy classic, in my books. James Mardsen and Seth Green steals the show but up and coming actors: Josh Zuckerman and Clark Duke did extremely well for themselves and prove themselves to be the next big thing in the future. It is just about as funny than Superbad and American Pie (1,2,3) and the plot of the movie was just so simple and well-made. Hopefully, Sex Drive will be a teen classic in the next few years because it's extremely funny, raunchy & has a little bit of it's sweet side, too. Sex Drive is awesome and super hilarious!!!

Yes it's ridiculous. But all teen comedies are. The acting isnt top notch but which one of them is? Revisit "Animal House" and tell me every actor was up to par. People need to relax. This is a fun film. Its offensive, but even when it is the actors play it off and make us comfortable. Seth Green stole the movie with his phoned in (as it should be) performance as Ezekiel. This movie should be up there with 10 things I hate about you and I dare say American Pie, as a definitive comedy classic of a generation.