or How Chris Stole The Show As The Most Adorable Horndog
….. by DomesticElephant
The Plot
Matthew Kidman is top of his class in high school and has a very promising future ahead of him—Georgetown is awaiting, but the last thing that’s missing for his successful career is a scholarship. A scholarship that is as good as in his pocket. On top—or maybe because of it, he’s one of the biggest underdog losers in his school, especially when it comes to girls.
His life takes a quick turn when a few weeks prior to their graduation, pretty and stunning Danielle moves in next door. And before he knows it, Matthew falls for Danielle. He impresses his whacky friends Klitz (with a K) and Eli by having the classy woman go out with him for a while, but only until porn-crazed Eli finds out that Danielle works in the adult film industry. Yes, exactly, she’s a porn actress.
While Eli is convinced this is Matt’s big and only chance to get laid, Matthew instead focuses on helping Danielle quit the porn industry for good. This turns out to be harder than expected when Kelly, Danielle’s former boss, suddenly turns up with a lot of problems in his wake. At first Matthew thinks that Kelly is a friend—but he soon finds out that this was a grave error. Because Kelly is not someone you should mess with.
Kelly takes Danielle to an adult film convention where he wants her to work for him. Matthew, determined to get Danielle out of the business, follows her to the convention with Eli (who’s going to his personal Mecca) and Klitz in tow. While Matthew tries to persuade Danielle to come with him, Klitz and Eli go on their own bizarrely funny adventures—by pretending to be film producers. However, when things get a little more serious with one of the actresses they meet, sex-crazed Eli is the one to chicken out. The actual mission of getting Danielle out of there fails, however.
Back home, things get messy when Kelly beats up Matthew, then blackmails him, as he knows that losing Danielle will mean huge financial loss for him. However, what Kelly wants is not money, he asks Matthew to break and enter into porn producer Hugo Posh’s villa—Kelly’s biggest rival. Kelly wants Matthew to steal a trophy that Kelly is convinced belongs to him rather than to Posh.
Matthew accepts his fate and breaks into Posh’s home to steal the trophy. He almost gets caught by the police and then finds out that Kelly ratted him out. Matt quickly has to bail, Klitz and Eli only just manage to get him out of there.
The scholarship dinner, where Matthew is supposed to hold his last, crucial speech, awaits and they are more than late for it. It doesn’t exactly help that Kelly gave Matt ecstasy instead of painkillers, which they only then realize. Matt makes a complete fool of himself, and doesn’t win the scholarship.
In the meantime Kelly isn’t giving up his fight as he manages to get a hold of the money that Matt collected for a wunderkind from Cambodia to finance his journey and education in the United States. The four friends have to come up with a plan to get the money back. Together with Hugo Posh they agree to make a “movie” and share their profits with Posh.
Everything is planned to go down during the graduation party. They find a few “volunteers” who always wanted to be in a porn movie and then it’s finally Eli’s turn to say, “Aaaand action!”
The Character
Eli. Porn Freak. Horndog. Definitely steals most of the scenes. You’ll see when you watch it.
The Likes
Well, of course you’ll like Eli. Yes, he is a porn freak, but a very lovable one. LOL
However, this movie isn’t about porn in the first place. It’s a movie about love and friendship and there isn’t any minute in the movie where they make you forget that. You’ll get to know a group of young people who help each other and stand up for what they believe in. It’s a great movie, so don’t let the porn scare you!
The Dislikes
There is hardly anything to dislike in the movie, actually. Of course you wanna slap Kelly for stealing the money and everything, but otherwise I guess there’s nothing not to like about it.
The Quotes
“Goddammit, Matt! I swear to God if you don’t f*** her, I’ll kill myself! Matt! Please! Please, Matt! F*** her for me! For me!”
“I just wanna bang hot chicks.”
“Matt, she’s a porn star! Take her to a motel room and bang her like a beast!”
“And you can still like her with your penis inside her.”
And finally my all-time favorite one: “Jesus, what hack made this? I could make a better sex-ed film with my mom!”
There are plenty more hilarious quotes in this movie, but I won’t spoil anymore. Just see—and listen!—for yourself!
The Co-Stars
First of all there is Emile Hirsch of course. Later in his career Chris worked with him on Alpha Dog, also a great movie. Then there is Elisha Cuthbert, who is certainly well-known because of her role on the TV hit show “24”, and last but not least, Paul Dano, who also starred in the wonderful movie Little Miss Sunshine.
The DVD
There are two different DVD versions out there, the “normal” edition (= theatrical version) and an unrated edition. As I have not seen the normal version, I can only speak for the unrated version, which, I presume, contains explicit scenes that aren’t in the theatrical version of the movie.
The unrated version has the following special features:
….. Director Commentary
….. Feature Trivia Track: Revealing The Girl Next Door
….. Cast Commentary (Emile Hirsch & Elisha Cuthbert)
….. Featurette: The Eli Experience
….. Featurette: The Making Of – “A Look Next Door”
….. Gag Reel
….. Deleted Scenes
….. Sex Education
….. Still Gallery
….. Trailer
….. Inside Look at “Taxi” & “The Ringer”
Most interesting for the Chris fans is probably the gag reel, the deleted scenes and The Eli Experience. The latter is a featurette about how they took Chris to an adult film convention and made him pose as Eli Brooks, adult film director. It’s pretty funny, you’ll experience Chris as a totally different person.
The Trivia
Chris was asked about The Girl Next Door and if people still recognize him as Eli in a collider.com interview in 2007. This is what he had to say:
Collider:
Do people still… the whole Girl Next Door, you know, with the Vivid hat and that character you played, is that, like, the one people seem to remember you?
Chris:
Yeah, it seems it. Just Friends sort of came into the picture after that, sort of, like, and blanketed out a bunch of other people. I did Girl Next Door now going on 5 years, so 5 years ago, so at a certain point now they’re like… I get less of, like “Hey, you’re that guy from…” and more like, “Dude, where did you go to school?” I’m like, “I didn’t graduate high school.” “Are you sure you didn’t go to Notre Dame?” “Yes, I’m positive I didn’t go to Notre Dame.” “I had English class with you.” No, it’s like, it sort of keys in with them and they really don’t know. That movie is, like, a frat boy movie, so for the most part if I’m at a bar and the guy’s like, “Dude, f*** her for me, dude”. And it’s like, (ironic voice) “Fantastic.”
Collider:
It kind of has a cult following.
Chris:
It became a very, like, college movie. Most of the people who’ve ever seen it like the movie. I like the movie, I thought it was very funny but most of the people who’ve ever seen it, they’re like, yeah, dude, we watch it in my dorm all the time, man, every Friday with some popcorn and some beer and we’re good to go. That’s really cool. Just Friends sort of took that over a little bit, though. I’d done that movie and then people a little bit later I felt I look a little bit more similar to that than I did in The Girl Next Door.