Suffering from a severe case of overwriting, "She's the One" is from Wicked Passions, the venerable porn label's division that specializes in what is euphemistically called "porn for women". It's soft-soft approach to hardcore content is not the issue here, but rather writer-director Bishop's over-reliance on stock cliches of the Romantic genre.
Bishop has a curious career: the Black filmmaker who one would have hoped had career opportunities in the vein of Robert Townsend or the late John Singleton instead slaved away in Black-cast porn for West Coast Productions, including some disappointing attempts at story films (rather than the label's wall-to-wall gonzo) such as "Ransom" and "Big Ass Stalker". For his Wicked debut he went all sentimental, in this story of star-crossed lovers played by Lexi Belle and Xander Corvus.
She's a waitress, working at a cafe with Brooklyn Lee and Charmane Star, who young financial executive Corvus has a crush on. Just when he gets up the courage to make his move, at the advice of his kindly boss Alec Knight, he finds her all excited to greet Kris Slater, mistaking Kris for her beau. It immediately turns out that Slater is just her visiting brother, but the damage is done, and when Corvus relocates from L. A. the chances for the couple to get it on seem to have evaporated.
Bishop's emphasis on friendly characters renders the story rather limp, as even in the lamest rom-com there are antagonists and romantic competitions going on. The goody two-shoes approach even extends to Corvus's subsequent blind date with Andy San Dimas, the talented Adult actress fitted out with red hair for this NonSex assignment. Instead of trying to win him over for herself she spends their dinner together giving Xander advice on why he should drop everything to win back his lost would-be love, a plot ploy that doesn't ring remotely true.
Making matters worse, Bishop's scene placement and editing drags this blind date on endlessly and unbelievably, as all sorts of other scenes are shown with cross-cutting back and forth to the endless Andy/Xander dinner, utterly preposterous.
The chance to do some old-fashioned acting, instead of merely token dialog set-ups to sex scenes, finds the cast in fine form, including Misty Stone as Alec's pleasant wife, with the interracial marriage aspect never an issue. Carolyn Reese makes a strong impression as Lexi's sister in one of her better acting roles (plus sexy in bed with her lover Richie). Wicked contract girl Kaylani Lei gets lost in the shuffle in a boring subplot involving her as girlfriend to "afraid of commitment" Ryan McLane.
Bishop got another Wicked feature assignment with "Just Friends?" but apparently his attempts at bringing back narrative porn have fallen by the wayside in an era of gonzo.
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