Taking a hit from a ceremonial bong after a teenager loses their virginity will be a long standing value in American society and one that parents everywhere should be proud of.
Or at least this is the seeming sentiment walking out of the theater of the “mocumentary” comedy “The Virginity Hit.” The raunchy—very R-rated film—details the desperate exploits of Matt (Matt Bennett) as he tries to lose his pesky “V-card.” This is all while his adoptive brother Zack (Zack Pearlman) and friends attempt to make his life miserable by filming the entire process.
Matt has been in a relationship with Nicole, played by Nicole Weaver (all the actors used their real names) for two years. This is the film’s first sign of when an authentic documentary style goes out the window. Sorry Matt, but Nicole is much too beautiful for you, and for her to stick around for two years, putting up with your self-wallowing attitude, is highly unrealistic.
This relationship is supposed to be the outlet which Matt can lose his virginity and join his friends’ club, where they celebrate their status of not being virgins by smoking from a devil shaped bong. Oddly enough, the film doesn’t focus much on this relationship, but rather on other obnoxious exploits of Matt trying to lose his virginity.
The almost primitive camera work looks as if someone’s grandmother just found out what a cell phone video was and thought it would be cute to make a documentary. Once immunity for the shakiness of the camera is built up there are a few jokes to be found.
“I’m going to do to your virginity what Alfred Hitchcock did to ‘Birds’” Zack said.
While Mr. Hitchcock may not appreciate the crude comparison to his classic film, the line opens the movie on an amusing note.
Unfortunately, this humor does not continue enough throughout the movie. In place of humor, “The Virginity Hit” goes simply for shock value. For example, Zack shaves his brother’s private areas while clearly having no experience doing this before, all in an effort for Matt to hook up with some random woman online so he can finally do away with his virginity.
The random girl that Matt meets online turns out to be conducting an experiment to see what extents men will go through to have sex. In Matt’s case, this is almost anything. When the woman leaves Matt with a transgendered blow-up doll to practice with and film his every move, it becomes entirely difficult to feel sympathy for the main character.
Matt’s obsessive one-track mind makes him lose perspective, not his virginity. If Matt took the time to care about others, as in similar films—“Superbad,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”—then audiences may actually want him to pursue his own sense of happiness. Rather, the film leaves with the notion that Matt is a self-centered, virgin jerk and it probably should stay that way.
Even having Will Ferrell on board to produce the film wasn’t enough to instill comedy amongst this scrambling teenage cast. The movie’s subtitle “An Epic Fail” may be too harsh for this review, but it sure comes close.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ben Macaluso at Ben.macaluso@colorado.edu.