I took a look at some of the reviews - they do not bode well for Middle Men:
Quote: George Gallo’s relentlessly trashy comedy- drama "Middle Men" tells the way-too- familiar story of a decent man’s downward spiral, with an Internet-porn twist. In a story based on true events, businessman Jack Harris (Luke Wilson) got himself involved in the late 1990s with a pair of idiotic porn entrepreneurs (Giovanni Ribisi, Gabriel Macht) needing help with their billing. Jack sorts them out, and soon gets rich ? but his ill-gotten gains bring him not happiness, but an unhappy wife (Jacinda Barrett), a lollipop-chomping porn-star mistress (Laura Ramsey) and unwanted attention from the FBI.
It’s a mildly interesting story ? remember when using your credit card on the Internet seemed like a daring thing to do? ? but Gallo employs a strangely convoluted back-and-forth time structure and an annoying, oddly laconic narrative voice-over by Wilson that promises more than it delivers. ("What happened next, you won’t believe!")
We’re never given much of a reason to care about Jack and his plight as this dull morality tale winds to its inevitable conclusion, with its parade of ugly yellowy-green interiors and bored-looking strippers, and Wilson’s distant performance doesn’t help matters. Take away the nudity and sleaze, and at its heart "Middle Men" is about billing. No wonder it needed all the jiggling. Quote: Frustrating, poorly-written, awkwardly-paced, and sometimes just plain dumb, Middle Men wants to join the subgenre of ensemble dramas about the seedy side of humanity that’s led by Boogie Nights but doesn’t have the personality or the style to do it.
The story of a man who watched his life fall apart while he was busy making millions off the birth of internet pornography sounds like one that would be perfect for a daring, complex character study. But there’s nothing neither daring nor complex about George Gallo’s surface-level film, one that tries to tell a true story but never once feels real.
With a lead character that’s truly difficult to care about, twists and turns that stretch credulity, a lack of narrative structure, and a string of relatively weak performances, Middle Men would be lucky to rise to the median of a list of the films released in 2010. It’s actually pretty far below "middle." Quote: Inspired by the true story of Jack Harris (Luke Wilson), Middle Men confoundedly begins at the end of the tale and then is told in a perplexing web of flashbacks, transporting us to various time periods and told from several characters? perspectives, all narrated by Jack (despite the fact that Jack is not present in some of the scenes). While attempting to piece together a synopsis of the plot in a linear format, it became very obvious to me why this non-linear narrative trick was utilized?there is very little plot to work with.
Wayne Beering (Giovanni Ribisi) and Buck Dolby (Gabriel Macht) invent e-commerce and thus discover a way to charge money for Internet porn. Riddled by cocaine habits and possessing absolutely no business sense, Wayne and Buck instantly begin making bad business decisions, squandering their income and getting mixed up with the Russian mob.
This is where Jack comes in. Jack is a Texas businessman who has an unfathomable knack for fixing bad situations; a smooth-talking negotiator, manipulator and diplomat, Jack seems to be able to talk himself and his clients out of anything. (Repeatedly contending that he is motivated by neither money nor power, we learn rather quickly that our narrator is smooth-talking the audience as if we are the FBI or Russian mob.)
A good old boy and family man (or so he claims), Jack tries his darndest to keep his distance from Wayne and Buck?s porn activities by only managing their billing operations. He rationalizes his role in the burgeoning Internet porn industry by explaining that he is no more involved in porn than respectable hotels (which offer their guests adult entertainment via televisions). Jack is merely a middle man.
Despite his full immersion into the manic and seedy underworld of sex, drugs and violence, Jack remains calm, cool and collected ? make that too calm, cool and collected; and other than a brief affair with a 23-year old porn star (Laura Ramsey), Jack remains far too innocent and flawless. (Even Jack?s affair with the porn star turns out to be for the benefit of U.S. National Security.)
On the other hand, Jack is surrounded by chaotic caricatures whose questionable moral fibers are grossly exaggerated (often for comic relief). Even the camerawork is stylized to portray Jack as the good guy. Wayne and Buck?s scenes are shot with crazed and frenetic zeal, while Jack?s scenes are very conventionally staged and paced.
Co-written and directed by George Gallo, Middle Men?s over-reliance on flashbacks (and pointless narration) ably castrates the narrative, thus creating a muddled and meaningless mess.
Rating: 2/10 Quote: Talk about Filmmaking 101; Middle Men is a would-be interesting story saddled with cliched trailer music and obnoxious voice over describing everything you see on screen as if you didn’t have eyes and a brain of your own. This is a film where the straight men play it straight and everyone else plays it way over the top, and it’s all too bad because this is a story that really could have turned a few heads had it been handled differently.
The film gets kick-started when an ex-veterinarian and disgraced NASA employee, Wayne (Giovanni Ribisi) and Buck (Gabriel Macht) respectively, figure out how to collect money over the Internet from anyone, anywhere in the world. This, of course, is all in an effort to collect money from people accessing porn, but this is what Mallick meant by it not necessarily being a story about porn, and he’s right.
Wayne and Buck, however, aren’t exactly working with a full deck. They may be smart when it comes to technology and never underestimating how horny men can be, but they aren’t exactly business smart. Drugs, poor spending habits and a deal with a Russian mobster gets them into a bit of trouble. Cue Jack Harris (Luke Wilson), a corporate fixer who’s made a name for himself getting troubled businesses back on the right track.
Despite turning things around for Wayne and Buck, and working things out with the Russians, Jack soon finds himself embedded in the business. While this means plenty of money, the decision comes with a new set of morals, takes him away from his wife (Jacinda Barrett) and child back in Texas and becomes the crux of the story.
I’m obviously only giving you the bare bones here in an effort not to spoil it for you, but I hope you can see there is a story worth telling here. Not only is it enlightening and interesting, but it’s got built-in sex appeal. Every day people send their credit card numbers off into the digital world, but did they know it all started because of porn? Where Middle Men gets this intriguing story wrong is to tell it to you as if it was story time in grade school with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" playing in the background. I wanted to take my lunch box and go home.
Director George Gallo’s musical choices here are atrocious and generic at best. I’m talking about the stereotypical trailer songs such as the Stones’ "Sympathy For The Devil" and "You Can’t Always Get What You Want," Tears for Fears’ "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and "California Love" by 2Pac. Middle Men marks the second time in two years you’ll hear Hall and Oates’ "You Make My Dreams" in a movie, but I will admit Moby’s "Body Rock" is used wisely in an orgy scene tracking shot.
Then there are the performances. While Wilson holds things together quite well, his voice over is entirely unnecessary and takes away from the work he’s putting into his performance. Ribisi and Macht turn things all the way up to an 11 in each and every scene to the point it’s exhausting, and you could feel the boredom in their performances from the moment their characters are introduced. James Caan even hams it up in his role as a sleazy Las Vegas lawyer.
Everything said, the many problems this film faces all originate from the framework of the script, co-written by Gallo and MTV series "Punk’d" writer Andy Weiss, who first wrote a draft of the story as a proposed television pilot. That would’ve probably been the right direction to go considering his safe and simple approach to the material. No risks were taken with this script, which means it’s like watching an hour-long TV drama stretched 40 minutes too long.
Where’s the story heading next? Not only will you see, but Luke Wilson will tell you using voice over. What’s going on in the room next door? Not only will you hear the conversation, but, again, voice over will reiterate what you’ve heard. This film should’ve been accompanied by milk and cookies it’s such a childish approach to the material, and considering we’re talking about a story built around the porn industry that just feels icky.
Middle Men could’ve been great, and perhaps one day this story will be done right. More talented individuals could tackle this material and really get something good out of it considering it’s got all the necessary requirements: sex, drugs, murder, backstabbing, mobsters and adultery. The key is to twist that into a story rather than a PowerPoint presentation.
GRADE: C Sounds like this movie is going to be a bomb, although it may make some money through cable/hotel showings. Whether that will be enough to help it break even remains to be seen…
ADG
Read more at: gfy.com
