Racer X

Adam & Eve Pictures has made several laudable big-budget porn films in the past decade, but RACER X isn't one of them. Apparently (news to me but listed as such in IMDb), they even stole the original working title of the hit Universal picture.

You'd never know this was from an ambitious distributor, since the feature reeks of low-budget and carelessness. Director Nicholas Steel(e), who is featured at great length in the BTS short subject on the DVD, which should clear up for anyone in the know that he's not the same person as Nick Orleans, is usually technically proficient but not on this film. Besides the "real film" deficiencies, he even falters in the sex department, as star Steven St. Croix in his first coupling with star Carmen Luvana does his usual pointed skywards money shot, but the photography and editing of same is so bad it seems to be a phantom ejaculation -not Steve's fault but Nick's bungling.

The cast leans heavily Latino (and Black) with prospects of a both racial and class subtext, but this too is loused up. Premise is our heroes (and heroines) are all working in a warehouse, bundling up saran wrap or something - my mind often wanders during a crummy movie and in this case I assumed they were part of the supply chain that feeds FM Concepts and its endless line of bondage/"wrap 'em up" soft-ish porn videos, classified by IMDb as "Adventure" genre (the adventure apparently is pulling a Houdini to escape from the wrapping).

But rather than make a Sinclair Lewis statement on this subject, Steele and company merely make working in a warehouse as boring as possible - hardly an eye-opener (and I know from experience, having had a summer job in one in my mid-teens). The class side starts off when a honky (handsome Chris Evans, an unfortunate choice of stage names since he actually looks like a porno equivalent to Chris Hemsworth instead) is hired out of nowhere to be the new warehouse supervisor, lording it over a 100% ethnic staff. How this surefire yet clichéd gimmick gets mishandled is a mystery, but Nick messes up.

What Steven and Chris have in common, and is shared by the rest of the characters, is a love of fast cars and street racing. The antagonism surfaces in the final reel with a big race, but it turns out to be a big nothing. The racing footage is poor, there is no excitement, no suspense, not even the turn-on of super-sexy women as camp followers - the sexy extras in a mainstream car movie are far sexier than the porno actresses styled here -an amazing lapse. The two antagonists emerge as best buds instantly, and the whole brief (84 minutes) film goes nowhere.

Of course, superstar Carmen Luvana is sexy and hot in her actual XXX scenes - but I'm referring to even her lacking eye candy content during the racing sequence. Rest of the cast is not at her level, though big-bust Eve Lawrence was briefly diverting. Nick and crew are so inept this time out that the two black actresses in the cast, Tanya Daniels and Dee, are both identified as just Dee in the BTS segment, and further complicating matters Tanya Daniels is also credited as Tanya DewGood, for which even IMDb fails to clear up whether that is indeed a single actress.

The only thing I liked about RACER X is a fine and varied jazz-oriented score, almost elevating the lame movie to Jazz Porn status, courtesy of Lance Erickson, who has done appealing music for other Nicholas Steele pictures.