SexDrive (DVD)

When I first saw trailers for this movie I thought it had potential, but it stayed relatively under my radar while it was in theaters. It looked pretty funny, but also pretty cliche.  Virgin high school guy takes a road trip to hook up with some fantasy girl he met online.  Sound familiar? Now that the movie is on video, I decided to check it out. 

As said before, the movie has a familiar premise. The whole “young people take a road trip and meet up with crazy people in weird situations” is as much a staple to comedy films as “slasher” flicks are to the horror genre.  Luckily, Sex Drive offers up enough original components to keep this idea somewhat fresh.  The story follows high school virgin Ian (Josh Zuckerman) who is constantly tormented by his older, more aggressive brother Rex (James Marsden).  Ian has an ongoing online relationship with his dream girl whose screenname is ‘Ms. Tasty’.

When she wants to meet Ian in person, Ian’s sex drive kicks into over drive as he tries to find a way to cross state lines to finally hook up with her.  There is one small catch, Ian had already told her that he drives a killer 1969 Pontiac GTO, which happens to be his brother’s car and most prized possession. Hormonally inspired, Ian and friend Lance (hilarious Clark Duke) steal Rex’s car and set out to go and meet up with Ms. tasty.  On their way out they are stopped by Ian’s best friend Felicia (Amanda Crew) who insists they take her with them when they lie that they are going to visit Ian’s sick grandmother.

That is just the beginning of the movie and already there are about 20 recycled teen road trip sex movie cliches. However, the saving grace of this film is the characters. Zuckerman is good as Ian, doing a great job of conveying the anxiety and stress of a young guy looking to lose his virginity. You actually sympathize for the character as he proves to be a genuinely nice person. Marsden as bullying older brother Rex is a bit too much at times, and his jerkness seems a bit forced in a lot of places.  However, he does have some of the funnier parts of the movie and his character had me busting up at certain points. Amanda Crew is great as Ian’s “BFF” Felicia. Not only is she easy on the eyes, she does a good job of portraying their deep friendship connection.

Perhaps the funniest characters in the entire movie belong to Clark Duke’s Lance and the Amish character Ezekiel, played by Seth Green.  Lance is a great character from the get go. He is probably THE coolest chubby nerd on the planet, looking like a combination of Jack Black and Austin Powers.  Lance is both smooth and hilarious yet at the same time as far from most people’s image of a “player” as can be imagined.  He has some of the best dialogue in the entire movie and no offense to anyone but if the phrase “tw@t blocking” isn’t in your vocabulary before you watch this movie, there is a good chance you’ll be using it after! Green is also very funny as Ezekiel, the Amish car expert.  Without giving away too much, the scenes where they are at the Amish village are just flat out hilarious and a bit surreal at the same time.

There is a good amount of nudity in this movie, and a lot of the humor is pretty raunchy. For those easily offended, this is probably a film that you should steer clear of.  Fortunately,the film manages to keep a good balance of raunchiness and wittiness so that it doesn’t fall into the trap of relying overly on shocking and gross humor.  If you don’t mind a little offensiveness with your humor, you should definitely give this flick a rent. You’re guaranteed a few good laughs at the very least.