The Verdict On 'Sex Tape' DVD: Is It Actually Worth Your Money??

Sex Tape is a Hollywood “insider” movie that has long been expected to hit the big screen. Sex tape is a generic term for all kinds of sex videos that have been uploaded by interactive devices into the Internet – there are probably hundreds of thousands of them, if not more. What makes Sex Tape the movie different? For one, it stars Cameron Diaz. Second, it is a lighthearted (but hard-hitting) entertainment about the suburban peril of a couple trying to put back the “oomph” in a marriage by making a three-hour sex tape of themselves enjoying the many fun things that can happen in the sanctity of the marriage bed. The peril lies in forgetting to erase the tape and accidentally uploading them to the interactive devices of all their friends and family (ouch!).

Sure-fire summer hit is the most probable term applicable here. The team of director Jake Kasdan and Cameron Diaz reprises a unique formula first seen in Bad Teacher. Kasdan and Diaz have, of a surety, put all the right ingredients in a filmic endeavour for Hollywood glory, circa 2014. On the “insider” stuff, we refer you to Mr. Rob Lowe, who is Hollywood insider non pareil. He is a direct survivor of the Hollywood underside – the pranksterish, childish and all-too-human mayhem of celebrity gone to booze, drugs and rock’n’roll.

Being ourselves Hollywood “outsiders”, we can only make educated guesses on how some salient points in the narrative are related to the Hollywood pits and film-making. Booze, drugs and rock’n’roll are not in the front seat here, but the film’s subject does make us think of the neighbouring hills, where drugs and booze fuel one of porn’s most infamous global centres. However, the narrative goes far, far from them – the ever-beautiful Cameron Diaz has the cachet to turn a “bad” subject into wholesome Americana, and it goes the distance in this film. Yes, Sex Tape could only happen in America – and we applaud the players (Diaz and Jason Segel, who plays her husband) as they go on a wild goose chase to totally erase the offending video from the national electronic database (but not before it entertains their entire community).

Lowe plays Diaz’s potential employer, a conservative man who does lines of cocaine in the movie. You have to watch the movie to figure this one out. In any case, Lowe is famously reformed nowadays, but his recovery from drug use was all of two decades. It was déjà vu time for him, but he does admit that it was fun to make the movie.

Writing credits for Sex Tape go to Kate Angelo, Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller. They’ve done impressive yeoman’s work on an off-putting subject. Kasdan and company were taking a risk in making this movie, but at the end of the day it is a palatable combination of spoofs, one-liners, ironic twists and the critically-acclaimed comedic side of a highly talented artiste. One character egregiously informs the desperate couple that the three-hour sex tape is the length of the movie Lincoln and they’ve achieved “the full Lincoln” on a very embarrassing potential situation that many who have their own sex tapes are in fear of. But three-hour and Lincoln it is not. For “the full Lincoln” on Sex Tape, you have to actually watch the movie but it’s no doubt one of this summer’s best movie dates.