"The Girl Next Door" (2004) (The Girl Next Door [2004] (DVD))

Member Name: jbsabbath

Product:	The Girl Next Door [2004] (DVD)
Date:	27/08/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Chris Marquette as the wise-cracking Eli

Disadvantages: The girl next door wasn't in the second half - won't appeal to many people

Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) is in the motions of graduating from school and moving on to an exceptional university, is the class president and one of the biggest losers alongside his classmates and best friends Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano).

When he spies the sexy Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) housesitting next door, he instantly falls in love, but only when he spies her undressing through a window does his whole life change forever.

Because, when the unlikely pair start dating, although more daring and excitement is thrown into Matthew's life, he discovers via his sex-mad friend Eli that Danielle is in fact a famous porn star.

The trio of nerds are quickly thrown into the world of the *naughty business* alongside Danielle's manager Kelly (Timothy Olyphant), and with back-stabbing and trouble at every turn aplenty, is there any way that Matthew can stay on track and win the scholarship that'll pay his way to university?

"The Girl Next Door" would never be my first choice of film to watch, the DVD's title, cover and cast list leaving much to be desired, whiffing of cheese and chick flick from the moment the case was opened.

But when the housemates chose for this over my vote of "Lethal Weapon", there was little I could do but grin and bear it.

But I must say that this is no chick flick, and I bet many a young lad made the same mistake by taking their girls on a first date to see this - the terrible awkwardness there must have been in the cinema with the amount of porn references and partial nudity in this film must have been horrible.

But this made me wonder who this film was aimed at, because it's certainly not a film any young girl will really like, and all the boys it was aimed at would have gone to see something with lots of explosions.

But thankfully, "The Girl Next Door" is not an awful movie and it did have a number of laugh-out-loud moments, but it does suffer somewhat from a terribly predictable and unrealistic storyline.

The whole nerd-meets-porn-star love story was too far-fetched, and Elisha Cuthbert as the girl-next-door doesn't really have anything to do in the second half of the movie and is practically forgotten in favour of speedy plot developments.

She does a fairly good job of looking sexy, but like 99% of the female cast in this movie she is ultra glossed over with make-up and it all goes to reinforce that this is an America that doesn't actually exist.

In fact, cliche-wise the only fat guy is the roadside cop.

Hirsch is pretty forgettable as the main guy, his best scenes being when he's on ecstacy towards the finale, otherwise all of the comedy comes from Chris Marquette as his friend Eli.

All of Eli's lines are sex-related, which are of course amusing, but there's nothing really clever to be had.

Ultimately, "The Girl Next Door" is a confused 15-rated pseudo-porn comedy that I can't see would really be enjoyed by under-sixteens or anyone over twenty-five - perfect for my housemates then!

The DVD we watched was the 'Uncovered - what you didn't see in the cinemas' edition, including a number of amusing special features such as a gag reel, deleted scenes and the usual commentaries.

[The DVD can be purchased from play.com for £3.99 (including postage and packing), at time of writing]

Summary: A childish comedy that should have been a porn film - whatamistake-a ta make-a!