Feeling late to the party, and telling a second-rate story compared to David Fincher's birth of Facebook movie
The Social Network that's debuts in 4 months hence - a trailer is online for 'the origins of internet porn' drama
Middle Men, and it's a big fat dud. Opening Aug. 6th, a few months short of
TWO YEARS after it wrapped,
Middle Men tells the real life tale of businessmen Jack Harris (
Luke Wilson) and Wayne Beering (
Giovanni Ribsi), who were the first guys to make money from selling sex imagery on the world wide web way back in '95. In doing so, they got caught up in Russian mafia trouble, terrorist organisations and young starlets with an agenda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeAEEdF9LR4 Ok... maybe I was a bit harsh calling it 'second-rate' compared to some film about college brats getting rich off a social media idea.
Yes, this is probably a cool story.
But, why then does the trailer feel so flat?
Maybe if the film was actually made when the Internet was still relatively young and just 'after the fact' like Fincher's Facebook movie, which itself kind of feels a little dated in the world of Twitter, etc, then
maybe it would peak my interest. Say this was being made in the year 2000... a time when Luke Wilson was just coming onto the scene and looked like he might have something, and before Giovanni Ribisi had decided he was going to become a supporting player his whole career, and before
Midnight Run &
Bad Boys writer
George Gallo had shit-the-bed with
Codename: The Cleaner and the 2008 STV movie
My Spy (starring Antonio Banderas and Meg Ryan that couldn't get picked up!!!) - then maybe I could get on board with this.
Gabriel Macht, James Caan, Terry Crews, Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Pollak and a few others support. Some of those names I like, but not enough to sway my feelings on this. It's a very low-level Paramount release that should be going to DVD, and very few people will see it.