True Detective: a XXX Parody

My provocative summary line is due to the egregious nature of this particular "parody", that dreaded anti-art form that has taken over storyline porn. This 3-hour (with tons of padding) feature is not funny, not satirical and not a parody -it is merely a copy of the popular HBO series.

This Cliff's Notes approach to filmmaking needs to be stopped; it's too late to nip it in the bud but hopefully those self-serving "Free Speech" advocates in the porn community will ultimately be defeated in the courts. No, these thousands of poorly done videos are not in any tradition of protest nor are they unexpurgated versions of National Lampoon magazine or TV's "Saturday Night Live". They're merely ripoffs.

For the XXX version, a sex change has occurred, so instead of Harrelson & McConnaughey we get Ryan Driller and partner Abigail Mac grilled by unnamed investigators working for a government commission to go over the incidents of a case that took place many years before (but rather recently on HBO).

The dialog is inspired by the show, the characters and scenes likewise -it all seems oh, so familiar. Where is the satirical edge? It's not there, instead, we have a dim (like the 10th sheet in a stack of carbon copies) shadow of the original, pausing frequently for overlong XXX sex scenes.

Mac's performance is terrible, her line readings so poor that I'm afraid the young actress will never be graduating from porno AA league to the Bigs of mainstream. Driller, who has been tiresome in many recent big-deal assignments including the dreadful "Marriage 2.0" is flat as a pancake. I had enjoyed Digital Playground's quality star Eva Lovia in the label's excellent "Monarch" miniseries, but here she's wasted in a silent (all she does is hump) scene -she should have replaced Mac as the lead player.

Other currently "hot" (at least with casting directors) actresses like Peta Jensen and Abella Danger kill off other sex vignettes and it is nice to see that Lexi Belle is still employable, cast in a major role as Carol, the cheated upon (and cheating) wife. In terms of sheer beauty, Samantha Rone brings a pristine look to her late in the show supporting assignment.

These "series" from Digital Playground are obviously ground out for website and streaming consumption, so as a DVD viewer I had to sit through endlessly repetitive credits sequences, recaps, "next time" and other filler, as boring as possible. Yet the clowns that issued this left off the overall credits, never citing any supporting roles, so even as an artifact the mess is incomplete and unfair to those troupers not at "star" level.

Despite having the TV model to copy, the pacing is terrible, modest action and exterior scenes amateurishly staged, and the final reels ridiculous in attempting to resolve the story in some fashion. I suggest these inept folks at DP's Chatsworth wing stick to making fun (and making money) by aping low comedies from TV like "The Beverly Hillbillies" rather than tackling serious material like this.