As a man of 33 years of age, growing up in the 80s and 90s, its hard for me to look at films made in or set in eras past and find any connection to that time frame. Even 80s films, with the short shorts, big hair and corny music, don’t really strike that emotional chord that I was there, living in that time, even though I technically was. It was all about the 90s for me and, aside from the New York-centric (and fantastic) film The Wackness, there haven’t been a whole lot of films that really delved into what the 90s were all about, that is until this wonderful film Middle Men. While I obviously can’t relate to the lavish lifestyle these interweb pioneers created for themselves, literally creating their own niche and shaping the way that the world would come to use the Internet from now on, I surely can relate to the premise that drove these men to do what they did: the notion that the Internet really did suck balls back in the mid-90s.
Nobody knew that more than two strung-out losers trying to make it big in Los Angeles, although they had no idea what they wanted to make it big as. Buck Dolby (Gabriel Macht) and Wayne Beering (Giovanni Ribisi) were just your couple of average L.A. drug addicts who were constantly complaining about how lame the internet was. Despite his self-destructive habits, Dolby was actually a genius, previously employed by NASA before he was booted out for getting high in the zero-gravity chamber. During one of these random conversations with Beering, in 15 minutes, Dolby wrote the program that would change the face of the Internet. He wrote the first program that would allow online merchants to take credit card payments online… only he used it to create a porn site, taking pictures of strippers and uploading them onto a site. After a spot of trouble with the Russian mob, Jack Harris (Luke Wilson) enters the picture. Jack is a seemingly average guy, with a loving wife (Jacinda Barrett) and kids back home in Texas. He excels at solving problems and turns out to be a fixer of Michael Clayton proportions who turned these troubled lads around and shaped their business from porn providers, to porn middle men. Instead of going through all the work of creating porn content, they shifted their business model to creating a way for John Q. Public to gain access to porn through a safe and discrete method. Instead of getting subscription fees from their one site, they got a percentage of the countless transactions from numerous sites every day, and they were raking it in hand over fist ever since. Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t problems, with a cutthroat Russian mobster (Rade Serbedzija) and a shady Vegas lawyer (James Caan) always wanting their piece of the enormous pie they created. Aside from trying to keep his drug-addled partners in line, Jack is also trying to keep his family in Texas together while also bedding down with a young porn star (Laura Ramsey), just to name a few curveballs thrown Jack’s way.
When I saw the trailer, I knew I was going to like the film, with this true-story tale, American dream undertones and superb cast. What I didn’t know was that, despite still really enjoying the film quite a bit, it’s a much different cocktail than they present in the trailer. While I don’t fault them for making the trailer they did, the film is a LOT darker than they play it to be in the trailer, although screenwriter Andy Weiss and co-writer/director George Gallo do a wonderful job with moments of humor sprinkled throughout the film. Basically, if you had an orgy and invited the films Boogie Nights, Goodfellas, Blow, perhaps a dash of Godfather 3 and threw in this crazy Internet true story, Middle Men is what you’d get.
Weiss and Gallo deliver some spot-on writing, taking us through this twisty tale with the precision of skilled race car drivers. We may not know what’s around every turn, but their writing takes us through each turn with ease, constantly zooming us through the onslaught of problems Jack and his crew come up against and, while you’re not sure how he’ll get out of it each time, you’re always surprised with how he does. They also drop some mind-blowing knowledge on us, showing us how the United States government used their company to track down terrorists through their porn activities. That part isn’t fictionalized at all and it’s something that I wouldn’t probably believe myself if screenwriter Andy Weiss hadn’t told me it was true himself, during an interview a few months back. I can’t say I was the biggest fan of the constant narration by Luke Wilson (likely another nod to Goodfellas), perhaps because I’m just not used to hearing that method used so heavily throughout the film. Still, this is probably one of my biggest beefs with the film, a film that kept me constantly entertained.
I enjoyed Luke Wilson’s performance here (along with the under-seen Henry Poole is Here) so much that I’m almost starting to think that Wilson is becoming an underrated actor. Despite his recent films not making a ton of money, he’s been turning in some of his best and most subdued performances of late, and doesn’t seem to be getting much credit for it. I honestly can’t see anyone else playing Jack Harris in this film because Wilson is so great at being the everyman, but also giving you such subtle nuances of emotion throughout, while his character Jack is trying to hold it all together. He’s the perfect contrast to the absolutely fantastic pair of Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht as Wayne and Buck. These guys are just pure, off-the-wall, cracked-out bliss and their reactions to normal situations in their state of mind are always a pleasure to watch. While this trio’s casting is certainly inspired, they really pile it on here with a slew of supporting and near-cameo roles from James Caan as the shifty lawyer Jerry Haggerty, Kevin Pollack as a federal agent, Rade Serbedzija as the head Russian mobster, Terry Crews as Jack’s muscle, James, and even brief turns from Robert Forster as a mob boss in a flashback, Kelsey Grammar as a politician and even the head of the Cobra Kai himself, Martin Kove as a U.S. Senator. Jacinda Barrett also plays Jack’s wife, Diana, but something about her has just never clicked for me and I never seem to like anything she’s done.
Middle Men is not quite the tale you would expect about Internet pioneers. Despite their lurid origins, the men of Middle Men are literally the personification of the American dream, building something out of nothing and changing the face of commerce. If you’ve ever bought anything on the Internet, you owe it to these three guys, and you truly owe it to yourself to see this movie to see how the Internet really became the way the world uses it now. All that notwithstanding, it’s just one hell of a movie, filled with wacked-out humor, nail-biting intrigue and dark drama that all started with three guys who wanted to make a little money, one click at a time.
