Hardcore: Bare Naked Talent (DVD)

Starring: Alex Constantine, Tom Clutterbuck
Director: Mark Withers
Running Time: 94 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: April 16th, 2012

I have to admit, my expectations weren’t high for Hardcore: Bare Naked Talent. A British mockumentary with an inexperienced cast, first time director and which was made in 2005 but only coming to DVD  now; it didn’t exact fill me with confidence. Even the fact it’s about the making of a porn movie suggests lowest common denominator trash, but I’m very pleased to report the film is a lot better than you’d expect.

The reason for that is that Hardcore takes the time to surround its tit and bum gags with a plot and characters you can actually empathise with. The core of the film is the journey of ‘Jack Innov’ (Alex Constantine), the pseudonym that a young wannabe filmmaker comes up with when he decides to direct a porn epic called Assanova, in the hope it will allow him to eventually make proper movies. As you might have guessed, making a porn movie turns out to be a bit of a nightmare, from Jack throwing up when he first has to direct people shagging, to his lead actor, Thom Cruz, having a rather painful penile injury.

It could have all been rather tedious if the mockumentary form wasn’t used so well, allowing you to actually care about Jack, who’s essentially a sweet guy with a dream who gets in way over his head. He ensures there’s an emotional core to the movie, while the other characters manage to amuse with their often bizarre antics. It’s rather odd that while you’d expect a set-up about making a porn movie to feel like it’s just trying for cheap laughs, Hardcore makes it work. Indeed the main thing that does feel cheap has nothing to do with sex, and is the fact they randomly give Jack’s brother Tourette’s Syndrome.

Hardcore is by no means a masterpiece but it is rather fun. However if you’re hoping this is going to be cheaply titillating and prurient, you’re out of luck, as for a film about making a porn flick, it’s oddly prudish, censoring out genitals (I suspect that’s because many of the cast and crew weren’t really naked on set). It’s rather distracting, but it doesn’t affect that fact that Hardcore is a lot more amusing than you might expect.

Overall Verdict: A surprisingly fun mockumentary that may be lowbrow, but has a good sense of humour and by bothering to create characters you like, becomes surprisingly involving.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac