‘Sex Drive’ aims to fill the ‘Porky’s’-shaped hole in America’s heart

The filthy teen sex comedy is a staple of American cinema, with each generation producing a signature romp in which rules are broken, booze consumed and virginity conquered, often on a timeline. From The Last American Virgin to American Pie to the mighty triumvirate that is Porky’s, these films obsess over the mechanics of sex with equal parts hunger and revulsion, and pushing the envelope is de rigeur.

Which brings us to Sex Drive, 2008’s attempt to fill the Porky’s-shaped hole in America’s heart. To become a true generational sex comedy, a film must best its predecessors, a task typically achieved through ever-increasing explicitness. For Sex Drive, this means trumping the gross-out humiliations and bluntly filthy shock-talk of Superbad, a spoof of a teen-sex comedy so knowing it worked as a teen-sex comedy.

With the first task—sexual humiliation and ickiness—Sex Drive succeeds, topping Superbad’s menstrual vandalism with extended exposure of elderly genitalia and the most unfortunate euphemistic use of “rolling brownout” in history. But there’s no beating Superbad’s point-blank potty-mouthedness (provided primarily by Jonah Hill, America’s best white cusser), and Sex Drive attains its necessary shock by cramming its filth in the mouths of babes. Where Superbad’s edgiest moments were assigned to young adults, Sex Drive is all about kids who actually look like kids, and hearing them comfortably riff on pure filth is entertaining in a making-a-toddler-say-fuck kind of way.

By far the film’s most distinctive element is the casting of the teenage pussy master, typically portrayed by a studly pinup of the Rob Lowe-in-1985 variety. In an inspired move, Sex Drive’s teenybopper cocksman is played by a schlub—Clark Duke, a doughy, cute young actor whose dorky exterior only makes his sexual cockiness that much funnier. As the film makes its way through its preordained paces—cussing babies take a virginity-vanquishing road trip, trouble ensues—Duke’s studly schlub manages to keep the proceedings mildly fresh. If a mildly fresh teen sex comedy is what you’re after, here it is.

SEX DRIVE DIR. SEAN ANDERS | RATED R | OPENS FRI

Tags: Film, Reviews, sex drive