Middle Men

This one was given the Distributor Bum's Rush by whoever makes those kind of decisions, but it deserves better. Every Character on Screen is really unlikable and not even that interesting. However, they are welcome Screen Sleaze, Criminals, Low-Lifes, Pornographers, and the best of the lot, a delusional "Middle Man" Fixer type that fancies Himself some sort of Hands-Off, Masturbatory outlet.

Internet Ticket Taker/Porn Provider is what He becomes, all the while telling Himself, and the Viewer in an ongoing Voice-over, that He is an innocent Family Man of the Norman Rockwell persuasion. Talk about denial. This has an extremely derivative Movie Style that never makes any attempt to hide its Homage/Theft. Starting out as a Whacked Comedy it slowly moves to Neo-Noir territory and is better for it.

The Crime Story mixed with Dark Comedy works the best and the Wild Slapstick and over Acting from the two Central Figures gets unwelcome every time they show up and show off. The Movie looks great and is mostly effective, but sometimes becomes disjointed with a lot of Subplots and a whole lot of Characters sliding in and out.

Overall, not bad and worth a view if nothing New.

In "Middle Men", Luke Wilson is a man caught in the middle between legitimate businesses and pornography. Both he and the film are caught somewhere between a documentary and a porno. With an interesting enough story about the beginnings of internet commerce, the film probably gets enough facts right to be able to say, "based on a true story".

Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht humorously play two drugged out "geniuses" with lots of ideas but no sense. When they create internet commerce and apply it to pornography they need straight man Jack Harris (Wilson) to turn it into a legit business. But before long they get him caught up in a world of money, drugs and porn stars, and then everybody needs help climbing out of that. Even the film. It loses some of its structure as we meet Russian mobsters, beautiful women and more money than you can even keep track of.

"Middle Men" is particularly well acted and interesting enough especially about a recent historical story that isn't very well known, that it can mostly be forgiven for its poor structure and confusion of genres. In between the documentary and pornography, we have comedy, crime and drama, and most other genres you can name.

'Middle Men' is not entirely true yet a fantasy created combining true events. As a viewer I have no idea which is really true and which is fiction but one thing true is that it's never boring.

Buck and Wayne are two genius guys who actually don't know that they are about to become millionaires by creating world's first porn site which requires a membership payment to access. They seem to be having everything but lacking some important aspects like living sober and teamwork. Though they come up with this great idea they practically manages to screw everything up within months by not knowing decent business ethics and keeping up the promises to the partners. This is where Jack Harris comes in who is a legit business man and a problem solver who turns the already million dollar porn business in to new heights by creating a middle party online billing concept. These 3 people who ultimately become victims of their own success, and digs deep in to unknown territory getting involved with very dangerous people.

The story telling is quite catchy in 'Middle Men'. It's fast phased and cannot be backtracked if you miss a line yet gives mood to the whole plot. It starts from the end and finishes from the end. The middle is the beginning! Buck and Wayne played by Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi respectively are two unique characters. They practically create the cash and demolish everything skillfully. Jack on the other hand played by Luke Wilson is an intelligent businessman who stops at nothing when he wants to achieve something. The whole plot is a struggle between these 3 people who just fails to find common ground even though they keep on earning millions of money by doing the same thing.

There is a kind of rush throughout the movie. This is created strongly using sex and money hand in hand with crime and desire. You will feel like each of these people are time bombs which is about to blow up eventually. Yet they exist like they will live forever. Except Jack who does a very smart move by creating an opportunity of out a grave danger.

A good load of entertainment and some background info on how internet porn and billing has come to light from 80s. It's never good to forget the history coz the future is shapes upon it!

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I agree with the critics who say Gallo (director) borrowed heavily from Scorcese, and I might even add the background music choices seemed to be "Scorcesian". However, if you can get past that, you might find the movie fairly entertaining and at times hilarious, thanks to some quite original plot twists and turns. Wilson, Ribisi, Cain, Sherbedgia and the rest of the crew were well cast. It's sad that there's total dross that reaps tens of millions of dollars at the box office, while something that's far from a stinker such as this earned a pitiful $700,000, but perhaps the R rating had something to do with it. There actually is not a lot of nudity or sex in the movie, except for a fair bit of amusing talk and suggestive scenes about male masturbation, which is there to poke fun at the porn industry.

...it's a billing service That's what our Main Middleman keeps telling himself. But, of course it is porn, billions of dollars worth. Fast-paced, with a rogue's gallery of out-there characters, particularly Rabisi, of course, in his element, I love how everyone keeps turning on each other, then realigning, then turning again, it never stops! Based on Real Life! Better than fiction, a real fun ride