BEHIND THE XXX

BEHIND THE XXX

Sean and Tyler Brookland run their own 'adult film' business, shooting on sets in Hollywood and the North West. Titles of DVDs available for order from their website include the likes of BEST OF PACIFIC NW BLOWJOBS and COLLEGE COED SEXY SECRETS.

BEHIND THE XXX is their self-made (directed by Sean) documentary that takes a look at the making of some of their more recent efforts.

It begins with a briskly edited introduction to many of the girls known for working with the boys: Berlin, Tana, Zayda ... probably not their birth names, I'd wager. Black beauty Jada stands out from the start, as do cute redhead Tammy and curvaceous blonde Tina. Let's not forget the delectable duo of ebony Jazmin and amorous Amber either. Nice.

Then we're straight into the action, with the boys (Sean, bespectacled and somewhat unkempt, directing) shooting a sequence which involves Jada Fire getting scuttled by a chiselled white dude who for some reason keeps his combat trousers on for the duration. Sean tells the pair when it's time to try other positions, and instructs his starlet to make it look like this is her first ever time being fucked.

A few more positions, an agreeable bout of bouncing from Jada's huge natural boobs, and then the shoot comes to a conclusion with the bloke offering a post-coital one-liner about 'American pie'. He delivers it woodenly and gets the thumbs up from the director.

From there, we move into another scenario from another of the brothers' films, and then another ... And that's essentially how BEHIND THE XXX rolls out over the course of its 76-minute running time.

What bills itself as a documentary is less an expose than a succession of outtakes from the making of videos such as CALL TO BOOTY, PALIN ERECTION 2008, TOOL TIME TINA and WET JAZMIN. The latter provides some nice female-on-female moistness towards the back-end of proceedings.

The problem I had with BEHIND THE XXX was that it doesn't reveal anything about the machinations of the porn industry, or even what life is like on the set of a dirty film. It simply employs a handheld camera to loiter in the background and watch as the Brookland Bros matter-of-factly put their actors through their paces.

The occasional sound bites to camera from the girls are hampered by banal questions that are thrown their way, ensuring we gain no insight into their motivations or true feelings on what they're doing. The male performers are even more faceless, as the Brookland Bros seemingly have no interest in them as people whatsoever.

Of course, you could argue that all of this is a moot point: there are those who would buy into this, not wanting to learn about what goes into the preparation of pornography (nothing, it would seem), but just looking for an excuse to watch some hardcore fucking.

Well, tough. There isn't any. The XXX in the title is therefore hugely misleading, summoning expectations of explicit action. It's soft-core all the way though, with heaving bosoms and the very occasional shaven haven being all you'll get to see. No penetration, no fellatio, no money shots ... nothing like that here.

So, BEHIND THE XXX offers little of interest for those hoping to lift the lid on this lucrative but to-this-day rather mysterious business, and has no content likely to seriously titillate those looking for simple kicks. Consequently, I'm struggling to think of who this would appeal to.

BEHIND THE XXX comes to DVD in an anamorphic 1.78:1 presentation. This is, I'd guess, correctly framed and looks very smooth in the image department. Colours and flesh-tones are natural; the digital photography retains a clear and sharp clarity throughout.

English 2.0 audio does its job without issue, save for the occasional dip in audibility due to the documentary style of the filming.

The disc, released by the filmmakers' own label Brookland Bros Entertainment (distributed, I believe, through Cheezy Flicks/MVD Visual), opens with a static main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

The only extras are a short gallery of on-set photographs (more soft-core shenanigans) and a 94-second promo reel which features clips from two of the siblings' other films, VAMP VIXENS (reviewed elsewhere on SGM) and MR PEEPS PRESENTS HAZEL.

BEHIND THE XXX is tame in terms of sex, perhaps so it would garner 'proper' distribution unlike the Brookland Bros' more hardcore output which is only available to order from their site (www.brooklandbros.com). As a documentary, it fails because it discloses nothing new about its subject - instead, it simply adopts a fly-on-the-wall approach that asks few questions and answers even less.

A missed opportunity, on both counts.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by BDBR
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
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