The Low Lifes

Vivid

Genre: Feature

Director: David Stanley

Cast: Trinity James, Randy Spears, Jack Lawrence, Chloe Jones, Chris Cannon, Rachel Rotten, Rob Rotten, Olivia O'Lovely, Tony Tedeschi, Tyler Wood,

Length: 77 minutes

Date of Production: 6/5/03

Extra's: 16.5 minute long Behind the Scenes featurette by Victoria Woodhill, five unrelated bonus sex scenes, two photogalleries, short biography for Chloe Jones, trailers, positions room, double sided DVD cover, forced spam

Audio/Video Quality: The picture was presented in the industry standard 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. It looked less grainy than Vivid's recent releases and except for some grain in a couple of darker scenes, I think some definite improvements have been made by the company in terms of picture quality. The audio was presented in 2.0 stereo English with no closed captioning. The vocals were slightly hollow but not bad and the music was toned down a bit, which made them sound better than average. The DVD transfer did not appear to negatively impact either the audio or video here (although I saw a couple of artifacts here and there).

Body of Review: Having watched a lot of feature porno's in the last several years, I've come to the conclusion that most of the smaller companies try to carve out a small niche by copying the big guys on the block and the big guys rely far too heavily on past accomplishments in order to maintain their piece of the porno pie. As long as they all keep supplying us with attractive gals having hot sex, I'm good with either strategy but this tends to limit innovation a whole lot. After all risks are called risky for a reason. Vivid, being one of the biggest kids on the block in terms of supplying the market with movies and content, has a difficult path to walk. They can stick with couple friendly porn and hope to slug it out with Adam & Eve, VCA, Wicked Pictures and other major companies or they can become a trendsetter of sorts. Personally, I think it's a big enough company to do both but until someone with a bold vision for the future of the company takes over, I'll be satisfied when they improve on the basics, primarily picture and audio quality. This is what happened on their latest feature, The Low Lifes.

The movie deals with a club owner who is selling his club to pursue other projects. The club is having a last night party and the owner, played by Randy Spears, wants everything to go well so the club will be remembered as having gone out with a bang. This being a porno, everyone gets to bang someone or another and that made the last night party a success. If it sounds like a flimsy premise to base a feature on, you're right but this is porn after all and no one cares about the story unless it gets in the way. The sex was pretty well done here in most of the scenes and here's a breakdown of the scenes by cast member and action:

Scene One: Trinity, a curvy redhead, Randy and Jack, had a scene at the nightclub. While it wasn't lasting as long I would've preferred, it had all the elements for a really hardcore scene: oral, straight, anal, a DP and a massive blob of facial cream provided by the two guys. It also had an element of chemistry, which made it fun to watch.

Scene Two: Chloe, the hot looking blonde on the front DVD cover, and Chris, had a scene in the backroom of the club. The oral was very hot and the straight sex pretty good when she started moving her ass (rather than just lying there like a lump). He blasted to her face and other than the music being somewhat wacky (playful little tunes like you'd expect from some on the Munsters is not my idea of porn music), it wasn't a bad scene, just limited.

Scene Three: Rachel, a gal that looks a bit like Tina Tyler from her prime, and her significant other, Rob (the guy with the weird green Mohawk hairstyle), had a scene at the club. I think the use of the Flight of the Valkeries as background music pretty interesting. The sex itself consisted of lots of well-done oral, some fair straight and pretty energetic anal before it ended with a facial.

Scene Four: Olivia, the gal with the curvy body and large breasts, took on both Tony and Tyler behind the stage of the club. The sex included oral, straight and anal with a DP. They ended it by jerking off on her face. Not a bad scene but somewhat limited in terms of maneuvering room and camera angles.

Scene Five: Chloe, still the hottest property of the movie by far, took on Randy and Eric on the couch in the back room. The oral sex was slow and erotic with the straight sex a lot better this time (than in her last scene earlier in the movie). She took the pop shot to the face quite well and this scene was among the best of the show.

Summary: I'm going to rate this one as Recommended since it had some good sex, attractive women, and decent, if not stellar, extras. If the feature had lasted another twenty or thirty minutes, I might've felt able to justify giving it an even higher rating (the fuck for the buck quotient was a bit on the low side) but a lot of you will enjoy the action that takes place on the DVD. I'm happy that Vivid has taken steps to improve the picture and audio quality and if this keeps up, they may well reclaim some of their lost market share from other companies that are all flash and no substance.