Barely Legal (2005)

Very disappointing...

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I really don't know where to begin when describing a film of the calibur of Barely Legal(AKA After School Special). Describing it as a catalogue of errors does a dis-service to films that fall in that category - because usually although they failed spectacularly for various reasons, there's some evidence that they did so whilst trying to do something of note. You never really get the sense that anything was really attempted here.National Lampoon, apparently meant something in the field of comedy at one stage in time, but I can't help but feel that it's reputation and stock nowadays is somewhat diminished given this showing. Barely Legal tells the story of 3 teenage guys who are inept with the girls and perpetually short on cash. Reasoning that they need money to get girls in the first place, they come across the idea of making their own porn film (not exactly an original concept). As preposterous as that sounds it's little in comparison with the casting. As well as conforming to the usual rule of anyone under thirty five could play a teenager in a fictionalised high-school setting, the leads are a somewhat strange combination. Two of the key characters are your typical geeky looking guys who for all intents and purposes you could perhaps see being in similar circumstances in real life. The other is what can only be described as Calvin Cline model. Taller and older looking, his presence on screen with his two co-actors is as striking as a pensioner at a rave - and twice as embarrassingly uncomfortable. It's quite obvious he's the one going to be getting the most screen attention, and inevitably the girls. It's a rather cynical Hollywood convention that's sadly both predictable as it is shallow.The Worse is yet to come however - now I realise that woman in these sort of comedies don't often feature too prominently, marginalised often at best. But here the bar is very much raised in a way so distasteful that it's almost nauseating. Portrayed as unintelligent and personality-lacking is one thing, buts it's another to imply woman are simply a means to an end - one that I don't think needs elaborating. Add to this almost random flashes of nudity and you have the rotten cherry on top of a very putrid cake. I've really got to applaud the film in that regard though, if it can make a mostly apathetic laid back guy take up near feminist views on character portrayal, then it really must excel in it's field. But the biggest question of all - I found myself wondering; is who exactly is this film suppose to be aimed at? A juvenile story and overall stupidity would make you assume youngsters but with soft-core porn scenes, nudity and masturbation jokes you find yourself at a loss to it's target audience. If you really want a teen sex-based comedy then you have a whole list of better alternatives; Superbad, American Pie and Road Trip to name but a few - comedies that actually had some substance to them as well as being a lot more humorous. With those in mind this shouldn't even register a passing glance. Barely Legal was meant for no one it would seem, and conveniently enough that is exactly what I would recommend.

When I happened to stumble across this film, it was entitled Barely Legal and not After School Special. Truth is, the film is barely watchable and feels more like a drunken after dinner daydream than an after school special. Is there an audience for this sort of material? Are there people that will enjoy a film like Barely Legal? The film isn't really about anything as much as it is a documentation of producing pornography or the meek attempt at making pornography and all the hassle that it involves. What really grates, and this is an underlying theme, is that watching a really bad film is one thing but watching a really bad film about people attempting to make a really bad film within the universe of what we're seeing is just painful.The film, a part of the National Lampoon series (whatever that is), was directed by David M. Evans (answers on a postcard as to what the 'M' might stand for) whose previous crimes against cinema include the 3rd and 4th Beethoven outings some years ago and who is also scheduled to direct the up and coming 'Ace Ventura Junior' film. That should be, if Jim Carrey sequels/prequels not starring Jim Carrey are anything to go by in the form of Son of the Mask and Dumb and Dumberer, utterly unwatchable at the very best.This particular little travesty however follows three young American boys at high school as they attempt to feed off Tony Montana's ideation of 'getting the money, getting the power and getting the women'. Yeah, trouble is Tony Montana had nothing to do with making pornography and Barely Legal has nothing to do with chasing the American dream: it's just clueless, horny kids using porn as a front to get closer to girls. The film is fundamentally flawed in every retrospect. Any film entitled 'Barely Legal' which revolves around people making pornography and still manages to worm its way into a realm of the '15' certificate over here in Britain instead of the '18' certificate has to have done something cataclysmically wrong during the making process. Clearly, the BBFC deem it not all that bad in terms of gratuity and I just wonder if that was the certificate the makers were aiming for – I doubt it.The boys making the film are Deacon (von Detten); Fred (Denman) and Matt (Farber), three hapless individuals given mercilessly unfunny introductions about their relationships toward girls and some of their 'habits' when it comes to communicating with them. The film totally disregards women from the off but the sad fact is that's an absolute given in this genre. There is lots of slow motion, lots of hair flicking and cutesy smiling girls looking flirtatious although any sane viewer will just yawn at it all. At one point in the film, a character whilst making the porno exclaims something along the lines of "Women's points of view don't even matter in these sorts of movies" and he's sort of hit the nail on the head for all the wrong reasons – when he says 'these sorts of movies', is it the real film actually recognising how rubbish it knows it is? If so then it's admitting it is rubbish; if not, then it's admitting to its blatant sexism right there.I think when the people that wrote this actually finished it, they were twenty or so pages short of 90 odd minutes. Thus, the messy and dull narrative that opens up to do with Deacon loosing his friends as the project falls apart is silly and doesn't work; it feels thrown in and manufactured out of the primary story about kids wanting girls so they make porn. It's the overall idea I don't understand. When will people learn that pornography is not funny? When will people realise that films about pornography are not funny? Glimpses or very quick cuts of bras, nipples and so forth do-not-make-people-laugh, simple; they are an on screen visualisation of someone's fantasy writ down and writ large across the screen for others to see – it's not funny and it's a waste of everyone's time.IMDb has this film on its 'release dates' page opening at Cannes, in May 2003 – it's one of those screenings at Cannes you just wish you were there for, purely for the reaction and the witnessing of the mass walkout I'm sure there was, that is of course if the fact it was shown there is true in the first place. Supposedly, Irreversible is the most walked out of film at Cannes ever, but that's only because no one was paying any attention to the screenings of this junk. Everywhere else, this was direct to DVD and the cast probably wanted it swept under the carpet for good measure. When the friendships have been broken down and patched up in doubly quick time, there's time for local porn king Vic Ramalot (Sanz) to waltz around in public complete with gun drawn hunting for the kids who he assumes to be up and coming rivals threatening his business. It really is that daft and that bad.

This was not a great film, but to call this a rip off of Porn 'n Chicken is just laughable. First off, NO ONE is going to rip off ANYTHING that Comedy Central does. Not if they want to be in show business much longer. (It would be kind of like the Yankees ripping off the Devil Rays.) Second, this was filmed BEFORE Porn 'N Chicken. Yes, this movie was bad. But so was Porn 'n Chicken. If you go into EITHER of these movies expecting to be entertained, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

A total waste of film, time and money. I cannot think of another movie that was so excruciatingly bad that it hurt as much to watch as this hunk of crap. Not one redeeming thing about it and on top of that they have Horatio Sanz in it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy crude humor, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing here! These writers, producers and director do not have a clue of what is funny. This is the most talent less piece of garbage ever! Please, oh please, avoid at ALL costs!