Guest Post: Sex Tape (2014)

Sex Tape Shoots Blanks

By Jonas Schwartz

The new comedy Sex Tape starts off solid, pulling the audience into relatable situations. A couple (Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz) discovers that their kids and jobs have drained the passion out of their marriage. They had started dating in college, when their libidos were in full bloom, but now they have to schedule appointments in advanced to get naked with one another.

After a few drinks, the wife comes up with a new way to spice up their love life, by recording their private moments on an iPad. Some savvy computer duplication software intervenes and suddenly several friends and one enemy have access to their three-hour interpretation of “The Joy of Sex.”

So far, the notion works. Who hasn’t feared the spark in their marriage has been extinguished? Who hasn’t been humiliated when a moment of privacy was witnessed by a parent, colleagues or strangers? Since the advent of the Internet, many’s very intimate moments wound up being broadcast around the world, sometimes without the leading player’s permission or knowledge. Once iPhones and Androids appeared with their ubiquitous cameras, nothing was ever private.

Therefore, writer Segel (who shares credit with Kate Angelo and Nicholas Stoller) and director Jake Kasdan have tapped into the zeitgeist with their concept. They even poke fun at the common man’s ignorance of what exactly “The Cloud” is. That is UNTIL the film’s halfway mark when the characters have lobotomies and act like jerks.

People in desperate situations do crazy things. They cheat, rob banks, and even murder. But they don’t often snort cocaine in order to impress a client or put their children’s lives in jeopardy by dragging them to a burglary of a mobster, at least not in a comedy where the audience is meant to identify with these people. The characters in Gilligan’s Island apply more deductive reasoning than the two here.

Then there’s the film’s villain, a wholly unbelievable character, but with no motivation to destroy our heroes so maliciously. The film doesn’t even dislike the villain and lets him off the hook as just a peck’s bad boy as opposed to the sociopath he truly is.

Who is this careless and unimaginative director, Jake Kasdan? He can’t possibly be the one who helmed the sly thriller Zero Effect with Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller as a haunted modern detective and his “Watson.” There is no way he’s the creator of the riotous documentary spoof of musical biographies, Walk Hard with a pitch-perfect score of Country music parodies and a bold performance by John C Reilly. THAT director, the son of 80’s genius Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, The Big Chill), was an up-and-coming super-director, one who wisely toyed with genre and wrote conversational dialogue. This new director, the guy who thrilled few with Bad Teacher, has made generic, sex comedies missing both the erotic and the funny. It’s time for the old Jake Kasdan to return.

Segel and Diaz are likable as the unwilling porn stars. Segel’s brand of goofiness works here and Diaz is both sexy and approachable, until the script starts selling them out. Casting the original victim of sex tape mania, Rob Lowe, was a clever conceit, but his character is so outlandish and preposterous, it wastes his talents. Also squandered is the wildly funny Rob Corddry as Segel’s supposed best friend (who is barely a friend and more of a putz).

Did Sex Tape need to be made? Possibly. It taps into our basest fears of losing our potency and also our privacy. But the script took detours that ruined the humor, the astuteness, and the audience’s patience.

Jonas Schwartz is a voting member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics, and the West Coast Critic for TheaterMania. Check out his “Jonas at the Movies” reviews at Maryland Nightlife.