A lot of people have been unfairly comparing Kevin Smith’s latest film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, to Judd Apatow’s films, but didn’t Smith work in the raunchy-yet-sweet genre years before Apatow hit it big with films like Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy?  Couldn’t it be argued that Apatow took the Smith equation and knocked it up a few notches with T40YOV and Knocked Up?  Sure, Smith uses some Apatowniverse (a la View Askewniverse) regulars (Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson), but not to steal Apatow’s audience, rather because these actors are hilarious!  Also along for the ride are Smith-regulars Jason Mewes & Jeff Anderson and porn stars Katie Morgan and Traci Lords.

The film starts with long-time platonic friends Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks) struggling to make ends meet.  They share a rundown car and split the rent on a dumpy apartment but have trouble paying their bills.  When Zack decides to max out his credit card on a Fleshlight instead of his rent and bills, he finds his and Miri’s water and electricity turned off on Thanksgiving Eve–the day of their 10-Year High School Reunion.

Spirits down, they head off to drink their miseries away.  Miri finds an old crush (Brandon Routh) who is living in L.A. and desperately attempts to bring him back to her place, seduce him, and finally have the life she wanted.  Zack, meanwhile, gets a jealous wife to sneak off to the nurse’s office with him and then meets a deep-voiced, throaty gay porn star (Justin Long in a hilarious cameo).  Later that night, as our heroes sit in a bar to avoid their dark, cold apartment (isn’t it nice we always have enough money for beer?), Zack realizes they could solve their financial woes by, you guessed it, making a porno.

Zack asks a coworker (Robinson) to finance the film in exchange for helping cast it and asks a hockey teammate (Anderson) to shoot the film.  Then, he and Miri hold some auditions and troll a local strip club to fill out their cast.  Through the auditions, they find Lester (Mewes) and Bubbles (Lords) who each possess a unique talent and at the strip club, Stacey (Morgan) is the only one willing to screw in an extremely uncomfortable place (not the back of a Volkswagen).

Zack and Miri decide on the perfect porno set-up and have that awkward conversation about whether they are actually going to go through with it all.  Suddenly, they start to realize their platonic friendship may not be as platonic as they had thought.  As the gang starts to shoot their indie porno, they run into problem after problem–but their desperation and ingenuity help them push through.  Smith, as usual, writes some pretty funny dialogue and his cast delivers the lines really well.

You may have heard Zack and Miri was originally rated NC-17, but through appeal it was brought down to an R.  The film is filled with a lot of raunch, but also with some pretty tender moments.  The move does start to stall a little near the end, but there is a pretty funny extra bit in the end credits that makes up for it.

Banks is fantastic as Miri, despite her character’s odd lack of action near the end; Rogen is funny, but I still think he’s best in small doses; and Robinson is by far the funniest among the bunch (followed closely by Long).  Does this film have something important to say?  Nah–but it does have a lot of laugh out loud moments, a decent amount of nudity, and a lot of heart.