Michael Ninn's visually stunning Magnum Opus could hardly be called anything other than SEX for sex is indeed what the movie's all about. Now don't get me wrong, it does not belong to the "wall to wall" category of porn - uninterrupted bump 'n' grind with little or no plot to interfere - but rather offers an occasionally enlightening comment on the perils of thoughtless commercialization of something as private as our sexuality by turning it into a public commodity. Not an easy stunt to pull off, considering this is porn after all and as such might end up simultaneously condemning what it preaches by its very nature. On the other hand, Ninn has succeeded in crafting an almost hypnotic allegory of innocence corrupted by juxtaposing tender lovemaking with coldly erotic play for profit, side-stepping the pitfalls of preachiness or hypocrisy.
A former art director at a New York advertising agency, Ninn wound up doing porn following a messy divorce which inspired him to make the melancholy BLACK ORCHID for comparatively small potatoes Western Visuals, which lead to him being snapped up by industry giant VCA which was in dire need of a figure head filmmaker. While Ninn's technical expertise was established beyond reproach, he realized that ORCHID's downbeat demeanor had divided audience response. He wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. Not that SEX turns out to be a barrel of laughs, but the plot's considerably more coherent and straightforward, thereby unavoidably sacrificing some of that previous work's subtle shading.
Pike (Aussie hunk Gerry Pike whose wooden performance may actually have been instrumental in Ninn's casting him as a pushed around pawn) is a pump jockey in the middle of nowhere who reckons that his Bon Jovi good looks should make him hot property in the big city. Before you can say MIDNIGHT COWBOY, he's kissing main squeeze Heather (the radiant Sunset Thomas) goodbye and hitchhiking his way into an unspecified futuristic über-town. As a cab driver working the graveyard shift, he meets the alluring Miss Million (former pro wrestler "Tyffany Million" a/k/a Sandra Margot) screwing - her real life boy toy - Ritchie Razor in the back seat. She casually hands Pike her business card, predicting a bright future for the naive lad. The evil Million turns him over to her boss Mr Morgan (the late Jon Dough) who immediately drags Pike down by the flowing mane, forcing him into fellatio. Homophobes out there needn't worry. This is implied so suggestively some might not even grasp what's going on. There's nothing homo-erotic about the gesture, just Morgan's way of establishing who's in charge of the show, not incidentally the title of the catchy Earl Ninn song playing over Dough's subsequent encounter with an unusually alluring Chasey Lain.
Pike is groomed as a big time model and movie star, an icon for the hungry masses. All of a sudden, his life's no longer his own. An engineered engagement for publicity purposes to glamorous fashion model Tatiana (the ever voracious Debi Diamond) ends abruptly when Pike o.d.'s on pills and booze upon learning that Heather was gang-raped soon after he left his home town. Intoxicated, he drifts into an absolutely awesome fantasy with Heather's accusing face staring at him from a huge TV screen transforming into the sneering Miss Million as an entrée into a three-way Sapphic scorcher involving Diamond, Diva and nipple-pierced Misty Rain. Million and Morgan are but minions feeding the eponymous "machine" of fame and fortune and Pike's half-hearted suicide attempt does him no good so those superficially "in charge" drop him like a hot potato. An ending reminiscent of Peter Medak's startling neo noir ROMEO IS BLEEDING finds the disillusioned Pike back where he started, older and wiser.
SEX stands as Ninn's signature film, his most successful blend of style and substance. Bill Smith's exquisitely agile camera work takes your breath away at every turn, especially in the award-winning farewell fling between the impossibly photogenic Pike and Thomas, accompanied by a perfect piece of music combining Motown with Enigma in a mix of sweeping orchestra with fabulous close harmony vocals from Dino and Earl, formerly of "Double Vision" fame. Career performances from both Million and Dough further sweeten the deal. She's both appealing and repellent as the extremely memorable villainess, so aggressive she seems constantly on the verge of veering out of control. He's even more surprising, newly clean and sober (alas, not for long), showing an intensity previously lacking. Not in his sexual performance, where he remains aloof as befitting his character, but in his big monologue detailing the transitory nature of fame. Ninn followed with a comparatively tepid sequel (SEX 2 : FATE) hampered by the inclusion of nearly 40 minutes of recycled flashback footage from the superlative original interspersed throughout.
