More Than a Handful 12 Review

Reviewed by Nat Hocken  on  6/8/2003

The porno mind isn’t necessarily a terrible thing to waste, but I’m convinced that it is often terribly wasted. If the porn audience is so disinterested in dialogue that it fast-forwards through it—which is a point repeatedly made in “More Than a Handful 12”—why does director James Avalon begin each scene with several minutes of bickering? The answer, I think, is for comic effect; but it’s a weird joke that asks us not to fast-forward through the same pointless crap it’s poking fun at.

The idea is none of Avalon’s plans for his erotic thriller are working out. Actors don’t show, props are missing, and those performers he does have haven’t bothered to read the script. (“I just came here to fuck,” says one chick. “Not use my brain. That’s why I left college.”) Each scene presents a new problem, another reason to argue for a few minutes before Avalon accepts the inevitable and shoots the sex, hoping to restore the story later. Unlike movies with narrative, this dialogue just goes round and round the same stupid peg in the ground until we’re all nauseous.

Actually I was sick of it by the end of the first scene. It could be funny if your stud doesn’t show and you’re forced to use a member of the crew as a stand-in. But ask yourself how funny it is if the crewmember chosen has one arm in a sling and an eye-patch over one eye. That’s a Hollywood joke—because eroticism isn’t the goal, comedy is. This, however, is a porno movie and I, for one, don’t tune in to porno to watch one-eyed, one-armed dorks screw beautiful women.

This isn’t a movie that allows you to choose between watching the story or skipping to the sex; it’s a movie that virtually forces you to skip to the sex. The “story” is such a chaotic downer that watching it is likely only to kick you right out of the mood for hardcore. Yet I can’t tell you that the fast-forward button on your remote is your salvation here. That’s because the sex itself is affected by Avalon’s approach.

This whole movie is like one long behind-the-scenes bonus feature. (Lord knows why the disc includes a Behind the Scenes feature of its own; I didn’t care enough to find out.) The effect this has is absolutely deadly. Everybody is, more or less, themselves—that is, they’re all a bunch of porno people making a porno movie. Like the girl said, they just came to fuck and they couldn’t care less who with or for how long just so long as there’s a paycheck waiting for them on their way out.

The energy is there, the usual rotation of positions is there, some of the girls are quite attractive, but there’s no chemistry. Mary Carey is involved in a threeway lesbian scene that occasionally generates a little heat and a few of the girls know how to give a pretty decent blowjob, but these are the things you notice only because by now you’re stuck with this disc and you’ve got no choice but to make the best of it.

Avalon’s assistant is the ignored voice of reason here. He’s the guy who keeps telling the director to forget about the dialogue and remember that what he’s doing here is shooting a porn movie. It’s a lesson Avalon never learns so it comes as no surprise that he fails to pass the advice along to his editor. “More Than a Handful 12” is heavily over-edited during the sex scenes: it’s got jump cuts and rapid fire cuts and the angle keeps shifting as though the editor wants to provide the audience with a multi-angle experience without the need of pressing any buttons. Like so much of this movie, it’s overkill. That’s why, I suppose, this disc also includes a Multi-Angle feature.