Middle Men

Every 10 seconds some sick, perverted, warped thought crosses a man’s mind. It’s a bit unfair that Middle Men were forgotten in favor of a giant called the Social Network, because they are very similar in lots of ways and the thought niggles away at you: Why didn’t Fincher decide to make this movie instead? A movie about dissemination of pornography to all corners of our beautiful sundrenched world is a bit like discovering facebook. But on fb there are more lunatics, more coke, suspense and snappy lines (ok, maybe about the same amount), and naked women. The main protagonist, excellently portrayed by Luke Wilson, takes us with his dry commentary through the whole journey up and back down again. And he does this just as well as Nicolas Cage in Lord of War. This is the space shuttle. Every time it takes off it costs Uncle Sam and the taxpayer 450 million bucks. Guess what it’s carrying. A satellite worth a billion. And why do you think they put it into orbit? For the Internet. But if you think it’s to help your kid with his education. Or for your dad to read Tiger Woods stats or for mom and grandma to learn how to cook a chocolate cake, you’re mad. It’s all about money. The worldwide porn industry makes 57 billion dollars a year while nobody admits to watching it. Gone are the days when people would drive to backstreet bookshops in the middle of the night. When we would hide in the adult section at the local video rental store. Or waited for the postman to deliver a parcel in a plain brown wrapper. Everything you could wish to see is right there at home or in the office, 24 hours a day. And it’s waiting there for you. His character is the complete antithesis of the two slobs, the equally great Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht who are stoned or drunk enough to come up with something like that. I found their scenes at the beginning of the picture really entertaining. Beyond a chasm of space and time, on a planet called Los Angeles two men became closer due to a conversation that will change my life’s path for ever. - How can you sleep in a chair? - What? The problem is that you just can’t really root for these two idiots. You come across jackasses like this in every college dorm. You want to kill or at least maim them for having noisy phone calls with their girlfriends at three in the morning (how can anybody like jerks like this?) and not keep your fingers crossed for them. But still, it is those two who come up with the idea that deserves a wolf whistle of wonder more than just “big tits". But these two idiots don’t realize that in less than a year they’ll be multi-millionaires. And that they’ll change the Internet into what it has become today. And, as this tend to be on this earth, the cretins always end up getting into trouble. Usually it turns out to be the Russian mafia, and here is no exception. And with them, the problems begin and out hero turns up. The entire operation is absolutely discrete and professional. Let us never forget that this is business. We make very sure to keep both the content providers and the content subscribers happy. That’s how we like to do business. He was meant to untangle the whole mess, but he got tangled up in it and couldn’t get out. A father who wanted to earn some money. The problem was that he had those two dullards as business partners and they stir things up as much as is humanly possible. As soon as things look as if they have calmed down a little, those two turn up. But at least thanks to them there is never a dull moment. Which is desirable. And there’s also a lot to look at. Laura Ramsey got to me already in Mad Men and in this cute, simple role, where she failed in that single and most important place, she is very effective. As is the whole movie. It’s good that here we have the true story of our generation for generations to come. The power of the internet is truly incredible. (07/02/2011) (less) (more)