She Bangs (Red Light District) Review

Reviewed by Kelly  on  2/27/2006

Title: She Bangs
Company: RLD Films
Length: 177 minutes
Production Date(s): November 28-30, 2005
Release Date: January 17, 2006
Condoms: None

Written by: James Avalon
Edited by: Alexander Craig
Director of Photography: Richard Banks
Directed by: James Avalon

BOXCOVER SYNOPSIS:
When Stacy (cover girl Sunny Lane), an innocent young female cop, goes undercover on a porno set to investigate a director (Manuel Ferrara) with mob connections, she gets a crash course on the latest tricks and perversions of sexual performance. It's a different kind of gun play than she learned in the academy, but takes to it like fish to water. Features Sunny Lane's first sex scene with two guys at the same time.

THE MOVIE:
Ever since I saw Devinn Lane as a detective don the sexy leather blue police dress equipped with badge given to her by a fetish photographer in Kink (2003), I’ve been jonesing to see another porn feature centering on a repressed female cop or detective getting her freak on. Of course, I’ve had a slight fantasy about that theme ever since I saw it played out by Joan Severance in Criminal Passion (1994), a B movie Skinimax bestowed upon me very early on in my puberty. So, naturally when I saw Sunny Lane wearing a police uniform on the cover of James Avalon’s latest (and last, for a while anyway) RLD feature and read the synopsis on the back I knew I had to see it. However, I was expecting a Skinimax-esque thriller and instead I got a re-affirmation parody. Of course, the title, She Bangs (2006), should have been a dead giveaway that this one might not take itself as seriously as Kink. The film’s plot, as outlined in the above boxcover synopsis, is really just an excuse for a lot of in-jokes about the adult industry, with various one-liners rolling off the tongue of Stacy’s police chief boss (Xavier Towers in a hilarious non-sex role) and Manuel playing a character meant to stand in for every asshole director/agent/producer/male performer/etc. working in the biz today. In the end, we are to have laughed a bit at porn as well as the slime ball pornographers but decided that when there are girls like Sunny Lane working it’s really not such a bad place.

Sunny’s character, of course, is a far cry from Devinn or Joan. She's written as a babe in the woods with her virginity in tact and a fiancé (Brandon Iron) in tow. The chief assures her that she won’t have to actually do anything sexual while undercover, but he was wrong and she ends up taking to sex like a fish to water. Sunny does her best with the role, playing close to her own personality. However, sometimes it is hard not to notice her overly wooden line readings. Then agian, her energy is so infectious, making her innately likeable regardless of how she looks, that she is a perfectly fine leading woman for this film. After all, watching her fuck, when she's at her best, is like watching Nikki Dial or Christy Canyon fuck at their most energetic. So, it's not like she has to be Veronica Hart in the acting department. She stars in four of the film’s six scenes and is amazing in each one. In fact, it is the two non-Sunny Lane sex scenes in this film that I didn’t enjoy, though all four girls (including Sunny) involved in the closing orgy get lost in the mix at one point or another. Ultimately, I'm inclined to say that this is the best Avalon-RLD film yet and I don't think that's just because I've been swayed by Sunny's amazing threesome. After all, she is the lead in Sex Pix too and I didn't really like the film.

THE SEX:
Scene 1: Gia Jordan w/Steve Holmes, Erik Everhard, and Manuel Ferrara (33 minutes)
Looking somewhat like Gina Gershon in Prey for Rock and Roll (2003), Gia Jordan is a porn star on set having a heated exchange of words with her director (Manuel), who is trying to talk her into a gangbang. After dropping repeated F-bombs, Gia is assured her gangbang rate. So, she agrees to it, stating that “they won’t be fucking me; I’ll be fucking them”. Funny that. Within a minute, she’s getting throat fucked by Erik and Steven. Within two minutes, she’s getting fucked up the ass in kneeling doggy by Steven. Within four minutes, John Strong has joined and she’s getting DPed. At least she’s still wearing her black F-me pumps. After an overly long parade of Gia getting DPed while sucking the odd man out’s cock, the three guys shoot off in her mouth. Manuel even drops a pretty big load in her mouth for good measure. She looks to swallow all four loads. This scene was as mundane to me as the story leads you to believe it was supposed to be. Then again, that’s probably because you rarely hear Gia moan since she’s usually smoking a sausage.

Scene 2: Sunny Lane w/Manuel Ferrara and John Strong (29 minutes)
Undercover and wearing the checkered blue and pink dress she’s seen in on the back cover of this DVD, Sunny’s on Manuel’s porn set having her back story questioned after she mistook the acronym ATM for a cash transaction. When she reiterates that she does deep throat, gagging, and everything else, Manuel pulls out his dick in a “prove it” response. Her face quickly goes from looking immensely saddened to quietly determined, as Sunny does her best to illustrate the “this is not how I imagined giving my first blowjob, but if I don’t do it this investigation is dead and so is my promotion” thought process her character should be going through. She drops to her knees, losing her white pumps in the process, and starts sucking. Of course, within two bobs of her head Sunny’s eyes lighten up as if she were in the middle of a great discovery. When John, as the cameraman, steps in with his erection, Sunny has a quick deer-in-headlights moment, but before long she’s working over both cocks like a seasoned pro and repeatedly telling Manuel that she’s a good little girl (is she being Stacy or Sunny here?). The actual sex is vintage Sunny Lane. Several times she looks overwhelmed by the threesome in a good way, as indicated by the wideness of her eyes or a peculiarity in her facial expression. So, it’s easy to believe this being Stacy’s first threesome, especially since Sunny claims in the BTS that this was her real life first time with two guys at the same time (not just on camera). In the end, she kneels on the ground where John’s average load hits her left side and Manuel’s big load smears the right side of her face with some hitting near her eye. The second half of the sex suffers from heavy editing, but other than that this is an incredibly hot scene.

Scene 3: Jenna Pressley and Tiffany Taylor w/Steve Holmes (27 minutes)
Sunny brings two of her friends to Manuel’s office to distract the accountant so that she can save some crucial files from their computer to a Flash drive. I suppose we are to assume that these two friends are actually hookers Stacy knows from her police beat. The girls playing them, Jenna and Tiffany, are ridiculously gorgeous, Ms. Presley a stand-in for Kate Beckinsale and Ms. Taylor a stand-in for any number of mainstream models. There’s absolutely no seduction here though. Steven’s practically fucking Jenna in a stand-up position before Sunny can even sit down at the computer he’s vacated. Of course, Sunny doesn’t stay very long, but she leaves her two friends behind to keep fucking. The girls take turns with Steve, though at times it feels like whichever girl he isn’t fucking is just off to the side spewing out generic dirty talk. Eventually, he lies down on the ground so that the odd girl out has a face to sit on. He ends up shooting off on Tiffany’s chest. One could question how much acting was going on by both Jenna and Tiffany here. Steve kept his clothes on the whole scene, and both girls kept their F-me pumps on.

Scene 4: Sunny Lane w/Brandon Iron (5 minutes)
As Brandon assumes his usual post-dinner ritual of trying to talk Sunny, his fiancé, into some sort of sex, he is amazed when he gets his hand underneath her bra and she doesn’t stop him. Not knowing about her undercover porn job, he assumes that she can no longer resist his charms. She, on the other hand, is suddenly hornier than a sailor on shore leave. However, she still wants to keep some surprises for their wedding night so she just gives him a handjob. What’s notable about this, other than the fact that it is a straight hand job scene in today’s industry, is that Sunny keeps all of her clothes on and Brandon only loses his pants. So, we get to see her mini-skirt pulled up and white cotton panties bunched up on her ass, but we don’t see her bare breasts or naked ass at all. It reminded me of vintage porn when more filmmakers understood that what we don’t see is sometimes sexier than what we do see, and that a simple situation from real life (in this case, a girl giving her fiancé a handjob) that viewers don’t escape into but instead relate to can make for profoundly erotic porn.

Scene 5: Sunny Lane w/Tommy Gun (17 minutes)
Still needing more information for the investigation, Sunny returns to Manuel’s set with much trepidation as she is ever fearful of someone sniffing her out. Once there, she finds Manuel busy setting up an orgy scene so she slips off to the make-up room. After a goofy two minute cameo from the busty brunette make-up woman Charlene Laughter playing, eh, the make-up woman, Sunny goes rummaging through an adjourning bedroom. Tommy walks in on her, and she claims to be looking for a bathroom to do her woman thing (“too much information”) in. When that doesn’t work on him, she compliments his dick size and asks to see it. He is still skeptical, but she is damn hot and he is a guy so sense loses out. After the blowjob, she drops down to nothing but her fur boots and kneels down on the bed for doggy style. Her shapely white ass looks great here. It looks even better during cowgirl. The rest of the scene is filled with missionary and reverse cowgirl. She pulls Tommy out during the latter position and jerks him off onto her pussy, another anachronistic sight in this film. This is a far more subdued scene than her earlier threesome with Manuel and John.

Scene 6: Lacie Hart, Karina Kay, Georgia Peach, and Sunny Lane w/Manuel, John, and Sascha (39 minutes)
The scene opens with all four girls making out in the living room as Manuel walks in the center, turns to the camera, and says, “Hi, friends. I’m Mr. Pervert and this is Mr. Pervert’s Happy Hour.” Then he jams his dick down Lacie’s throat. Sadly, this scenario, though clearly a parody, is still more creative than a lot of what I see being put out on the market today. The four girls gathered here are uniformly hot. However, three of the four don’t do anal (for that matter, Lacie is now a Vivid girl and Karina has either retired or is taking a very long break), so at some point Georgia will have to take center stage for an extended bit of time. That’s exactly what happens at the 20 minute mark when Georgia is DPed and stays the center of attention for around 10 minutes. After that, they try various combinations and Georgia ends up getting DPed again. In the end, all three guys shoot loads and the girls cum swap in pairs. The more partner swapping you get in an orgy scene the less likely it is that the director and editor can cut together something that flows anything close to naturally. And while this was not an impossible orgy scene to follow, because of its length and various position and partner changes its sexual heat seemed somewhat stunted to me.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Feature is on the first DVD, the Extras on the Second DVD.
Slide Shows (Glamour, Hardcore, Scene Specific)
Behind the Scenes (34 minutes)-Notable moments: Sunny and Manuel hugging when they first see each other on-set because they have such chemistry and it had been a while since they’d seen each other; Sunny talking a mile a minute after her threesome about how this was the first time in her whole life being with two guys at the same time and that she had so many orgasms; Manuel trying to memorize his lines on-set as Steve and Gia fool around next to him; Gia declaring that this is to be her first 4-on-1 and that they aren't leaving until she gets to cum too; Steve resting his head on Charlene’s chest; Lacie and Karina looking rightfully but gracefully sick of being asked if they do anal. This focused almost entirely on the sex scenes (no sign of Xavier’s dialogue scenes with Sunny here), with most anything the girls say to the BTS cameraman being of a flirtatious nature.

FINAL THOUGHT:
There are some things I would have done differently here. For instance, when Sunny starts sucking Manuel’s dick at the beginning of the threesome I would have had her do an intentionally tentative job at first, causing Manuel to pull out and kick her off the set. However, she would demand a second chance, and since she’s so hot Manuel would give it to her and then that’s when we start with her somehow having the sucking ability of a hoover vacuum. The way its done in the film might make more sense, but these changes would have added some great tension. Plus, when she’s vaginally penetrated for the first time I would have emphasized it a little more. After all, this is supposed to be her flat out losing her virginity. We don’t want ultra-realism, but a quick reaction shot of her face would have been nice. Also, with how hot the opening credit sequence of Sunny putting on her police uniform was I would have tried to close the film with a scene in which she starts with the uniform on and slowly loses it during sex. I probably would have completely dropped the scene with Tiffany and Jenna. To fill its place…Well, now I’m just re-writing the film which isn’t fair. As it is, I really enjoyed this film. It’s not perfect and it does end with an orgy, but Sunny Lane looks so amazing and her threesome is one of the hottest scenes I’ve seen in a while. Now, let’s hope that when (or if) Avalon starts shooting for RLD again that he remembers Sunny’s number. How about a film with Syren and Sunny as the two female leads? Lethal Hardcore is holding a write-in contest where the prize is an all-expenses paid (that includes travel costs) date with Sunny Lane. So, if you'll excuse me I have a contest to enter.

RENT IT or BUY IT:
BUY IT; especially since it can currently be purchased online for $11.99.

About the Author:
I am an undergrad in college writing reviews of porn DVDs from time to time, and I have only recently realized how many grammatical errors I could catch if I simply proof read these things. My main purpose is to provide fellow porn fans aid in shopping decisions, but I write about what I would want to know about any given film thus my propensity for devolving into overly serious analysis. My favorite all-time porn stars include Avy Scott, Taylor St. Claire, Christy Canyon, Taija Rae, Tracey Adams, Jacqueline Lorians, April West, P.J. Sparx, Victoria Paris, and Nikki Dial. Among the active girls, I enjoy Naomi, Sunny Lane, Sara Stone, and Harmony Rose. So, I’m naturally inclined to favor brunettes with (big) natural breasts and/or an amazing ass. When I first started reviewing, I thought that there was nothing better than all-sex, which is popularly but inaccurately referred to as gonzo. However, now I favor features or at least something with a little more care and substance than interview-and-fuck and any hint of Max Hardcore-style misogyny is an instant turn-off. As far as directors go, I enjoy the vintage films from Henri Pachard, Paul Thomas, John Leslie, and John Stagliano whereas I currently enjoy the work being done by Justin Slayer. My favorite porn films of all time include Sex Life of a Porn Star (1986), The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women 1 (2000), and The Fashionistas (2003).