Lahhlay M I've always been a fan of Luke Wilson, and have preferred his work over Owen's. Middle Men is not your typical Luke Wilson comedy, It's much rather a cross between a Guy Ritchie and Martin Scorsese movie. That's not a bad thing by any means. What Middle Men will do is keep you entertained and engaged from beginning to end. Whether it's Wayne & Buck arguing back and forth, or Jack's ability or lack thereof,of balancing his family life and business.The cast is pretty impressive with James Caan and Kevin Pollack also lending their talents. Everyone played their part well especially Giovanni Ribisi's performance as the coke'd up "Wayne Beering". His mannerism's and habit's were entertaining. Overall I loved this film for what it was, a dark comedy centred around the internet porn industry. The soundtrack is great, which i might add is very "Scorsese esque". Loved the use of 2 Pac's California Love =) It's an intelligent film full of dark humour about pornography. My only gripes with Middle Men would be the pacing of the story, i feel if they had a longer runtime it would have flowed through effortlessly. They are minor issues though, they balanced the comedy well with the crime elements of the plot. It should be said that "Middle Men" is very underrated, and I would recommend it to fan's of dark humour and pornography, which after watching this movie, is every male living on the planet. Check it out, you won't regret it.

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Morning *** Friday Night ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning A fictionalized account of Jack Harris (Luke Wilson), a businessman in the 90s who spots the potential for internet porn and falls in with two loose cannon entrepreneurs (Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht) launching a pioneer porn site that attracts viewers from around the world. But things turn ugly when they fall in with the Russian mafia and a meeting ends in a killing. Always with his neck out for this, Jack gets caught up in a whirlwind of success over the next few years that sees him caught up with a high profile young porn star (Laura Ramsay) and threatens to destroy everything he holds dear.The middle is seen as the best place to be for quite a few people in life. Not at the top with too much expected of them, or at the bottom where it or them are written off as loosers. Middle Men is a film about people trying to get to the top by eliminating those in the middle, which shows just what a prominent position it actually is. And yet, incidentally, it is sadly here where the film finds itself. An uneasy mixture of light hearted observation and hard hitting violence, the shift in tone feels uneasy somehow throughout and produces a film that is slick, stylish, but also somehow messy and sloppy, leaving the viewer alienated and confused. This is a sad weakness, as it's clear all involved are putting their all in to it, from lead star Wilson, to a considerable supporting cast including the likes of James Caan and Kelsey Grammar, and it's a daring and original tale of an emerging commercial opportunity and a changing world, with changing needs and darker desires. Director George Gallo just seems to be at odds telling it is as accessible and coherent a manner as he can. ***

Matt_Layden The "Inspired By True Events" telling how how one man became filthy rich off transactions between distributors and customers of the porn industry, via the internet. I don't know how true the story is since the man the film is based on is also the producer, I would embellish a few points as well to make my life seem more interesting. Still, the film does an okay job at telling the tale of how he became a multi-millionaire, got in trouble with the FBI and got away squeaky clean while everyone else got theirs. Luke Wilson plays the lead character, a guy who people go to when they need some help with a business problem. Gabriel Macht and Giovanni Ribisi play two idiots who come up with the brilliant idea of charging people for looking at porn on the internet, apparently one of these guys is the one responsible for writing the code that allows internet companies like Amazon and Ebay, as well as online banks, take your credit card number and bill it. So, the term idiot isn't exactly the right one, but they do manage to screw it up, snort away tons of money and be in debt to the Russian mobster known as Nikita Sokoloff, who can only be played by one man, Rade Serbedzija. So Wilson is brought into play to help get the business back on track, he is the one who comes up with the idea to be the middle man. Don't make the porn, just be the company who bills the customer. No one wants their bill to say Big Boobs, or some other dirty things I probably can't say here. Why not 24/7 billing, something nice and clean. So they end up raking in millions and millions. Of course they can't make all this money and live a happy life, where is the excitement in that?So there happens to be an accidental death, the two guys who came up with the idea get more and more paranoid and accidentally end up involved in a child porn site, Wilson helps the government assassinate terrorists and James Caan shows up as a slimy lawyer...are there any other kind though? So a lot of stuff happens in the film and this guys life, things just seem to get out of hand and crazier each day. Which of course takes a toll on his marriage and family back home. A well put together film with an interesting topic. The overall film feels a bit short in it's reach to achieve success though. Wilson doesn't really stand out even though he is given the chance to. Giovanni Ribisi is the one here who seems to be having the most fun with his role, I would have like him to be a bit more paranoid though. Kevin Pollack shows up in a small role as an FBI agent as well as Kelsey Grammar as a man running for office. As well done as the film is, it doesn't stand out when it should. It becomes mediocre and forgettable as every concludes. The film never got attention and yes it's sad, but it's also evident why. There is nothing special about it. Even if it is better than half the trash we see today.

TxMike This story jumps around a lot, back and forth, between several different years, but usually the year is announced. It involves the very beginnings of selling things over the internet, and using online credit card billing. Luke Wilson is Jack Harris, a level-headed family man who is good at any kind of business enterprise. In fact, it is his ability in this regard that gets him involved with a couple of real dandies, the epitome of anti-business guys.Giovanni Ribisi as Wayne Beering and Gabriel Macht as Buck Dolby one day just happen upon the idea. They are crude guys, who enjoy the occasional (well, maybe continual) porno magazine, and figure there are guys like them all over the world. It is the early 1990 and internet-based commerce has not yet been launched, so they get the idea that posting photos of naked women on a website and charging $9.99 for access, might be a good venture. It becomes popular beyond their wildest dreams.But not being business men, they have no idea what to do with this, and James Caan as unscrupulous lawyer Jerry Haggerty hooks them up with Jack who immediately realizes the potential. They would become "middle men", for a 10% fee they would hook up sellers, anywhere in the world, with buyers, anywhere in the world.This idea took off like a rocket, but unfortunately the men got hooked up with Rade Serbedzija as Russian crime boss Nikita Sokoloff in Los Angeles. So eventually it becomes more of an issue of survival for Jack and the others.I found this to be a very entertaining story, accepting that it probably is mostly fiction. However I found the pervasive use of filthy language, by almost all the characters, a big detraction.SPOILERS: Jack got sucked into the wrong lifestyle and even took up with a 23-year-old porn star. In one meeting with the Russian gang, an insult was made, one of Jack's men threw a punch, the Russian guy died, so they had to dump the body off the coast and pretend that he left with the money and skipped out. Eventually his two inept partners told the whole story to the FBI, who were investigating them for child porn charges. At gunpoint Jack was forced to sell his share of the business, he asked if it was OK to post-date the document to 6 months earlier, ostensibly for tax purposes, but really to be excused from the FBI charges. He eventually realized the whole he was in, the addiction to the wrong lifestyle, and reunited with his wife and family in Houston.