Starring: Don McManus, Jay Paulson, Betsy Rue
Director:Robert Nathan
Rated: NC-17
Throughout the film Betsy Rue’s character Ashley Saint continually proclaims she may be in the adult industry that she is a professional. The same can be said for Betsy herself. She takes on a role that many might not.
Typically when you go into see a found footage film it’s going to be a horror film. Why? They are cheap to make and horror brings in a great return on investment. At this point it’s what you expect to see. While this is a found footage film it forsakes horror and enters the realm of a genre that has just as high of a count in bodily fluids, it’s just not blood. Enter Lucky Bastard a found footage thriller set against the backdrop of the adult film industry. The content alone got it slapped with a completely unnecessary NC-17 rating.
It’s an intriguing premise, a website called lucky bastard picks one of its subscribers each month to sleep with porn star. They film it and the winner usually ends up getting embarrassed and humiliated due to their poor performance. It’s all worth it in the end trading in their image and reputation for an encounter with an adult performer.
Enter Dave (Jay Paulson) a super creepy guy who is the so called “winner”. When Dave blows his wad before he even has sex with porn star Ashley Saint (Bestsy Rue) he loses it both literally and figuratively trying to get the video footage back so nobody will see it.
The gimmick is that the house they film in was rigged with cameras for a former reality show that shot there in the past. Porn shoots are usually at rented homes in the Valley. So there is no need to create implausible scenarios as to why someone would be filming. They just use the video cameras previously installed all over the house.
The few sex scenes in the film are all seen from security cameras so they are not graphic yet extremely realistic, No skinemax grind here. Betsy Rue stars as the adult star Ashley Saint and she is a trooper, most actresses would have passed on the role but she goes all in. I wouldn’t be surprised If actor Lee Kholafai had to ice down his shoulders from her legs slapping about.
It’s rather clever for the genre to go in the porn direction, though if you are going to get slapped with an NC-17, I say go all in, Earn it. Really step up the sex and violence. Take it to the next level. Dave constantly says he doesn’t want to kill anyone but does every chance he gets albeit primarily off camera. I say show it, have more sex scenes get a little graphic with killing (a squib would be a good start). Like any adult star if you can’t be famous be infamous that’s what Lucky Bastard needed to do. Its an NC-17 film set in the porn industry that is just a fluffer short of completely going balls out.
Grade-74
