The first thing I thought as the credits rolled on ‘Sex Drive,’ was that it is a difficult task to take on the teen sex comedy these days. It is hard to feel fresh when you’re dealing with a tired genre. I’m almost certain during the pitch, someone had to have said, well, its ‘Road Trip,’ meets ‘American Pie.’ Then someone went, hey awesome idea, then green lit it. I could go on with the problems with this, but I’ll save that for a future op-ed piece.
Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is an 18 year old kid who just finished high school, and he’s the only virgin he knows. He meets a girl online that goes by the name “Ms. Tasty” who invites him down to Knoxville to meet up. His best friend, Lance (Clark Duke) urges him to start taking risks, because that’ll be the only way it happens. His other best friend, a girl named Felicia (Amanda Crew), comes along for the ride (unaware of Ian’s goals). They borrow Ian’s brothers Pontiac GTO Judge, and set out for a crazy road trip.
The cameos along the way are fun, notably Seth Green as an Amish mechanic. The unfortunate problem that this film as the others in the genre are just what can you do anymore really to have you stand out from the rest. The casting decisions were smart, I liked everyone in the film. I’m not the biggest fan of Clark Duke (best known for his web-series with Michael Cera), but he filled the shoes of the overly sarcastic, cheeky best friend. Zuckerman also was a great talent to watch, he’s convincing, and definitely has excellent presence.
The thing with the movie is I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. There was nothing terrible about it, but there wasn’t anything that makes me want to tell the world that this is required viewing. The best I can say about it is, if you happen to catch it on cable, give it a watch, it does have some laughs.