3.5 stars.
College is supposed to be a time of learning, a time of exploration and, according to Hollywood a time with lots of indiscriminate sex.
A group of Yale University students took that idea to a new level by starting the Porn 'n Chicken Club, a secret society that gathered once a week to watch pornography and eat Popeye's fried chicken.
The group got plenty of mainstream press exposure - even luring a New York Times reporter to New Haven to write about the club. Now cable's Comedy Central has taken the story of the P'nC club and based a movie on it - the comedy network's first full-length feature.
The movie is basically a coming-of-age flick, (suppress your gag instinct, it's not a wholesome coming of age movie.)
The movie follows the club from its genesis - Quentin, played by Alex Burns, Andy, played by Geoffrey Arend, and Lenny, played by Michael Goldstrom, help their stressed-out, anal-retentive pal Hutch, played by Ebon Moss-Bacharach, get over a break-up with his girlfriend - to the grand finale: the making of an all-student porn production titled "The StaXXX."
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As the club begins to pick up steam, the quartet hooks up with Polly, played by Angela Goethals, an undergraduate trying to get Yale to create a Human Sexuality major.
Before long the quintet is talking about making its very own porn movie staring students and raising the hackles of the Dean Richard Widehead (get it? Dick Whitehead! Bwa-ha-ha! Oh, sorry. . . played by movie and TV vet Kurt Fuller) and running afoul of university benefactor Roger Stone, played by Joseph Siravo, who is preparing to run for governor and doesn't need some snot-nosed kids ruining his run for the state's highest office.
As far as plots go, the one that "Porn 'n Chicken" chose is well-worn and fairly formulaic.
But then trying to break the mold of the rebellious students taking on the evil dean while trying to tell the story of a porn/fast food club might've been too much to ask. This is television after all.
Fortunately Comedy Central hired writers who could actually write comedy. Throughout the movie, the jokes are solid and wry. Like many Hollywood movies of late, "P'nC" doesn't give more than a perfunctory look at the main characters' lives. Hutch is the geeky one, Quentin is the smooth, sleazy one, Andy is the smart, wry one, Lenny is the virgin and Polly is. . . polyamorous, studious and sultry.
The "adults" are little more than ciphers - the dean is a watered-down version of Dean Wormer and the benefactor is a suit with a bad disposition. The closest an "adult" comes to being developed is Josh Pais as the lecherous, camera hog Professor Hoffman.
But the movie is so well-paced and well-written that it hardly matters. After the first 30 minutes, all you care about is whether the porno is going to be made and whether Hutch and Polly hook up - they do. (Oops, sorry. Major plot point revealed.)
As made-for-cable movies go, "Porn 'n Chicken" is a success. Even with the usual romantic complications and requisite happy ending, it's worth the time.
"Porn 'n Chicken" premiers Sunday night on Comedy Central, Comcast channel 59, at 11 p.m.
