MR. SHOWBIZ "ORGAZMO" REVIEW
74/100
Among those targeted for ridicule in Orgazmo are short people, fat people, gay people, Japanese people, old women, young women, Mafiosos, cops, dogs in heat, Latino lovers, porn stars, superheroes, security guards, and most of all, Mormons. That's the secret to writer-director Trey Parker's obnoxious genius. Best known as the co-creator of the rude, crude TV cartoon South Park, he goes out of his way to offend everybody. (Don't laugh too hard—you could be next.) Filmed before there was a South Park, and buoyed into theaters by Parker's swelling celebrity, Orgazmo isn't a great comedy. But it's good enough to be a late-night cult favorite for years to come, in spite of (and precisely because of) its NC-17 tag.
Parker stars as Joe Young, a meek Mormon missionary contentedly spreading the good word door to door in Los Angeles—until he makes a strong entrance at the home of a porn director and finds himself with a new job and the stage name "Joe Hung." Sure, porn is an unusual career choice for a Latter-Day Saint, but money can convert just about anybody. Joe assuages his guilt by vowing to use his fat paycheck to give his fiancée, Lisa (Robyn Lynne Raab), a lavish wedding in the Mormon temple. Telling her he'll be detained in L.A. while acting in a production of Death of a Salesman, he promptly begins work as the title character in a skin flick called Orgazmo, playing a superhero who uses kung-fu moves and the climax-inducing "Orgazmorator" stun gun to subdue villains and bed the damsels in distress.
Though he refuses to do penetration shots (for these scenes a "stunt cock" is brought in), Joe loosens up, albeit slowly, and becomes pals with his diminutive, dildo-headed sidekick, Choda Boy (Dian Bachar), as well as all the women on the set. When his movie becomes a cultural phenomenon, Joe branches out into the real-life superhero biz, and reluctantly signs on to an even more lucrative sequel. But he ultimately has a change of heart, and finds that getting out of the business isn't nearly as easy as getting in.
Orgazmo's occasional flaws in pacing, tone, and sensitivity are obvious, but mostly forgivable because the film delivers consistent laughs, even more so than the equally rude There's Something About Mary. Bachar steals many of his scenes, even more than you'd expect from a guy with a plastic penis on his head. As Choda Boy, he delivers Orgazmo's most effective moments of movie-convention mockery: He's the underappreciated sidekick with the funny voice; he's the little kid whose dad didn't care; he's the martial-arts expert forced by the powers of evil to use the vicious "hamster style" technique one last time.
Even so, the movie is all Parker's. His bland but self-assured appeal lends a light tone to the proceedings, and his surprisingly good-natured script toes the line between laughing at everyone, and laughing with them. And if you're concerned about political correctness, take heart—several Mormon viewers of early screenings have reportedly exited theaters smiling. --Scott Roesch