So, why am I giving only 5 out of 10 to A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy? For that, I have an answer: they screwed it up. That is to say the producers and the director screwed it up.
First of all, there are a lot of funny people in this movie, and there are some great throw-away lines that just melt off the dialogue spool until the simile runs out of its metaphorical fishing pole. And even though we have the same setup here that a lot of successful - if not great - R-rated comedies do (Hot Tub Time Machine comes instantly to mind: not that great a film, but good enough to remember instantly when talking about another comedy which is less successful), we do not have a really successful (i.e., it makes people laugh) movie.
Something happened on the way to an R-rating for a basically PG-13 film. I can't pretend to know what happened, how it happened, or why, but it happened. And what you get is a very tame "orgy" that could have almost been on Lifetime save for one short boob shot from the lovely Angela Sarafyan. One. I can't remember a single other boob shot in the movie though there may have been one or two.
So, clearly, other than language, we have a PG-13 movie. So why not clean up the language and just go for PG-13 which would, ostensibly, make more money because it opens up the movie to that magic demographic of 13-18 year-olds who, well, buy everything?
Did Reed Hastings - the smooth-mover who built then destroyed Netflix - produce this movie? Aaaaarrrrgh .no, he did not. Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory did, and they are two really funny dudes who have produced some of TV's best series including the Larry Sanders Show, King Of The Hill, and Frasier. Did Reed Hastings direct AGOFO? He did not. The same producing duo directed the film as well. In other words the fault lies with them (yes, the company that financed the venture might have been pressuring them, but I don't know that for sure).
And I'm left with the same conundrum: Here is a very lightweight R movie that would have fared better if it had done one of two things: 1. Gone for the R and made it a lot more naked, or 2. Cleaned up what little there is and get the coveted PG-13. What's there is just not strong enough for either. But lest you think I am hung up on a ratings thing, let me say that the storyline failed to punch up the jeopardy (whoa! Dad's going to sell the house, how can we stop that from happening? And then maybe written in three hilarious attempts to do that – all of which fail. And THEN plan the naked orgy party of ALL TIME! And then, for God's sake Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory, DELIVER THE GOODS! Make it happen, Guys, because what you've done is left a fish gasping on the dock and in grave danger of not working at all as a metaphor for the film's failure! Now that's jeopardy.
But we never feel that we have an all or nothing situation happening here. Nothing that happens HAS to happen. And when they do have their orgy, the camera suddenly goes all coy on us. Some lovely people in the film who look good all over never even get down to bikinis, well maybe at the end, but nothing whatever sexy ever happens. And sexy is what the word ORGY promises! ORGY=SEXY. Simple lexical algebra. It's false advertising. And people break orgy rules like the guy whose girl does actually flash the only set of tots in the movie goes berserk and insists that she not be in the orgy after all. Wha ? And it's downhill from there. Which is a pity because there was a lot of humor knitted up in that mix and if they'd only have spilled a little nudity not metaphorically onto the screen they might have ignited a minor hit. At least a 7-star hit from me.
First of all, there are a lot of funny people in this movie, and there are some great throw-away lines that just melt off the dialogue spool until the simile runs out of its metaphorical fishing pole. And even though we have the same setup here that a lot of successful - if not great - R-rated comedies do (Hot Tub Time Machine comes instantly to mind: not that great a film, but good enough to remember instantly when talking about another comedy which is less successful), we do not have a really successful (i.e., it makes people laugh) movie.
Something happened on the way to an R-rating for a basically PG-13 film. I can't pretend to know what happened, how it happened, or why, but it happened. And what you get is a very tame "orgy" that could have almost been on Lifetime save for one short boob shot from the lovely Angela Sarafyan. One. I can't remember a single other boob shot in the movie though there may have been one or two.
So, clearly, other than language, we have a PG-13 movie. So why not clean up the language and just go for PG-13 which would, ostensibly, make more money because it opens up the movie to that magic demographic of 13-18 year-olds who, well, buy everything?
Did Reed Hastings - the smooth-mover who built then destroyed Netflix - produce this movie? Aaaaarrrrgh .no, he did not. Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory did, and they are two really funny dudes who have produced some of TV's best series including the Larry Sanders Show, King Of The Hill, and Frasier. Did Reed Hastings direct AGOFO? He did not. The same producing duo directed the film as well. In other words the fault lies with them (yes, the company that financed the venture might have been pressuring them, but I don't know that for sure).
And I'm left with the same conundrum: Here is a very lightweight R movie that would have fared better if it had done one of two things: 1. Gone for the R and made it a lot more naked, or 2. Cleaned up what little there is and get the coveted PG-13. What's there is just not strong enough for either. But lest you think I am hung up on a ratings thing, let me say that the storyline failed to punch up the jeopardy (whoa! Dad's going to sell the house, how can we stop that from happening? And then maybe written in three hilarious attempts to do that – all of which fail. And THEN plan the naked orgy party of ALL TIME! And then, for God's sake Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory, DELIVER THE GOODS! Make it happen, Guys, because what you've done is left a fish gasping on the dock and in grave danger of not working at all as a metaphor for the film's failure! Now that's jeopardy.
But we never feel that we have an all or nothing situation happening here. Nothing that happens HAS to happen. And when they do have their orgy, the camera suddenly goes all coy on us. Some lovely people in the film who look good all over never even get down to bikinis, well maybe at the end, but nothing whatever sexy ever happens. And sexy is what the word ORGY promises! ORGY=SEXY. Simple lexical algebra. It's false advertising. And people break orgy rules like the guy whose girl does actually flash the only set of tots in the movie goes berserk and insists that she not be in the orgy after all. Wha ? And it's downhill from there. Which is a pity because there was a lot of humor knitted up in that mix and if they'd only have spilled a little nudity not metaphorically onto the screen they might have ignited a minor hit. At least a 7-star hit from me.