DVD Review: “Tailgunners”

What we don't understand is how a porn director or company will give its audience a liitle bit of credit, and then stop. Adam & Eve's "Tailgunners", set in 1944, raises our expectations with cinema-quality lighting, sound, and editing (and the sex isn't bad, either), as well as presenting us with an involved story about WWII.

Then the producers really hope we won't notice that a lot of the acting is bad and the historical details are a little sketchy. At least "Tailgunners" errs on the side of boobies. (And the Allies.)

Read our review of "Tailgunners" after the gap. - GP

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Tailgunners

Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Nick Orleans
Cast: Carmen Luvana, Austyn Moore, Kylie Ireland, Flower Tucci, Katja Kassin, Ana Nova, Lexi Lamour, Roxetta, Kylie Worthy, Mia Bangg, Annika, Randy Spears, Lexington Steele, Evan Stone, Harmony, Scott Nails, Tommy Gunn, Tyler Knight, Eric Masterson, Derrick Pierce, Veronica Hart

Review by Gram Ponante

From the opening strains of a "Castle Wolfenstein"-worthy score I knew I was in for a treat. On a reconnaissance mission outside of Paris, Evan Stone, in color, takes pictures of black and white German military targets. Already the viewer is prepared for the spiritual crisis that is war.

"Tailgunners" is an excellent example of big-budget porn filmmaking in which the standard is set so high that weaknesses stand out more clearly. It is a movie that is shot and edited so well that a viewer expects quality control throughout, having given up the right to say "It's just porn". Then something happens - aside from the sex scenes - that makes the viewer remember that it is, in fact, just porn. Oh well.

An early outbreak of "It's just porn" is a scene between Randy Spears and Tony Tedeschi. Something to do with an Axis nation's ability to deliver a bomb. Lighting and sound: perfect. Spears: grave and perfect. Tedeschi: appears drunk (not a character choice).

Then we meet President Roosevelt (played by Adam & Eve founder Phil Harvey) who now and then forgets his polio by crossing and uncrossing his legs in his wheelchair. He praises the ladies of A.S.S. (American Secret Service), who are helping to win the war clandestinely.

In the heartland, Tracy Hogan (former A&E contract performer Austyn Moore) complains to her war-widowed mom (Veronica Hart, used here much less cleverly than in "Neu Wave Hookers") that the Army Air Corps won't let her fly. "I'm the best pilot in Peacock County," she pouts.

The real innovation of the movie is Kylie Ireland as Eleanor Roosevelt, dictating policy from the business end of a glory hole, where she is servicing the White House chauffeur. Before this movie's inevitable run on hotel room cable, perhaps it should make a detour to the History Channel?

"There's nothing like black cock in the White House," Ireland says.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Evan Stone is captured photographing Nazi planes. The movie's best scene is mostly in German as Stone is granted a final request by Katja Kassin and Annika (and Carmen Luvana who, speaking Spanish as a kind of cross-platform Nazi ringer, is finally cast well in a non-documentary speaking role). Luvana determines Stone's nationality by an unorthodox method and then he is smothered, similarly unexpectedly, by Annika.

Tracy is finally given flight status via an audition process that surprises no one, and she saves Manhattan several scenes later.

We have seen porn movies combine sex with story very fluidly and effectively, as in Adam & Eve's excellent "O". "Tailgunners", while featuring lots of eye candy, ultimately sends our expectations southward again.

But you know what? "Tailgunners" is still better than Kenneth Branagh's "Warm Springs".

· Adam & Eve (adameve.com)
· Buy "Tailgunners" (gamelink.com)