Middle Men (film)

Middle Men
Theatrical poster
Directed by	George Gallo
Produced by	Christopher Mallick William Sherak Jason Shuman Michael Weiss
Written by	George Gallo Andy Weiss
Starring	Luke Wilson Giovanni Ribisi Gabriel Macht James Caan
Music by	Brian Tyler
Cinematography	Lukas Ettlin
Editing by	Malcolm Campbell
Studio	Oxymoron Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Vantage
Release date(s)	May 17, 2009 (2009-05-17) (Cannes) August 6, 2010 (2010-08-06) (United States)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 million
Box office	$754,301

Middle Men is a 2010 comedy-drama film directed by George Gallo and written by Gallo and Andy Weiss. It stars Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi, Gabriel Macht and James Caan. The film is based on the experiences of producer Christopher Mallick of Paycom and Epassporte, an internet billing company dealing with the U.S. pornography industry.

Long Synopsis

The film begins with a flashforward of businessman Jack Harris explaining that he has several million dollars in a duffel bag and is on his way to see a group of Russian mobsters who have kidnapped an innocent child. In his car on the way to see the mobsters, Harris continues to roll his situation over in his head, and most of the remainder of the film is told via flashbacks.

In Los Angeles in 1997, best friends Wayne Beering (a cigarette-smoking, cocaine-using, pornography-loving slump) and Buck Dolby (an inherently stupid rocket scientist with an IQ of 187) are living together in a dingy apartment. Wayne complains to Buck that there is nothing good to masturbate to on the Internet, and, in their stoned state, soon have a quick argument and a brawl on their floor about how Wayne is a deranged loser.

Back in Houston, Jack and his wife Diana have a conversation about how a friend of theirs in LA has had an injury and needs Jack to fly out for a few weeks to run his failing nightclub while he cannot. Jack is reluctant, but agrees in order to get his hands on the money his family needs.

A few nights later, back at Wayne and Buck's, they are once more arguing that the Internet is not entertaining because there is no decent pornography on it. Wayne has the idea that they buy a supply of pornographic magazines, scan the images, upload them to the Internet and charge people for the service. Buck complains that, while it is a good idea, the only way to get people's subscription money is via credit cards, and no computer program exists that enables an Internet user to punch in their credit card details securely. Excited by this idea, Buck decides to write the program himself, using knowledge from his old job at NASA (before he was fired) to develop a credit card application that soon set the benchmark for all credit card transactions globally.

The next day, Wayne, using Buck's program, creates the site with a $9.99 subscription fee, and sets up sound indicators based on what pornographic types they are selling subscriptions to in their apartment. The site starts off slow, but eventually they begin selling subscriptions, and make thousands of dollars in a few days.

While they continue making money, Buck and Wayne soon start receiving complaints from their subscribers that they need fresh material, so they go to a local stripclub with the intention of befriending the club owner, letting them take some video of the club's girls, and cutting the club in for a percentage. Unbeknownst to them, the club is owned by Russian mobster Nikita Sokoloff, who allows them to shoot his strippers for a 25% cut and a lifetime partnership.

With the new content, the site explodes with subscribers, making the pair around $25,000 a day. To celebrate their newfound success, Buck and Wayne decide to take a road trip to Las Vegas with their riches.

Meanwhile, after turning the LA nightclub into a booming success, Jack is introduced to Jerry Hagerty, a rich lawyer who is friends with the club owner. Impressed by what Jack has managed to do with the place, Hagerty invites him to Las Vegas, and tells him about a pair of Internet sensations who made a killing peddling porn over the net, referring to Buck and Wayne. Hagerty explains that once in Vegas, the boys neglected to pay off their Russian partners, who paid them a visit in Nevada, beat them up and threatened to kill them unless they got their money. The lawyer asks Jack to head out to their hotel to sort out Buck and Wayne's problems, but Jack refuses, saying that he has a family and will not be a pornographer. Hagerty, however, persuades Jack on the basis that he will not be making the porn, he will just be the businessman selling the porn. Jack agrees, knowing that a bit of help in Vegas will set his family up for life, and goes to visit Buck and Wayne.

Jack makes a proposition to Buck - they will not provide a frame of pornographic content, they will just be the middle men. They will buy the porn from wherever it is being made, peddle it over the Internet using a nondescript billing company to hide the nature of their business, and take a cut of the payment. Buck and Wayne agree, and the three become partners. Buck, however, wants to cut Hagerty in, but Jack refuses, claiming that he does not trust Hagerty because he is under indictment and is due to be arrested any day. Jack instead pays off Hagerty to stay away from the deal.

Jack, Buck, Wayne and James are then faced with the angry Russian mobsters who are owed money. They are paid a visit by Nikita Sokoloff's cousin Ivan, who threatens Jack's son Michael. James retaliates, and punches Ivan in the face, who later collapses through a glass coffee table and dies. Panicking, Jack, Buck and Wayne dump Ivan's body in the ocean, and Jack warns them not to say a word of it to anybody because they are now all accessories to murder.

Back in Houston, Diana learns about the business that Jack has been doing in Las Vegas, and is not pleased. Jack promises her that he will get out of the business once it has set their family up, but Diana still does not like it. Nevertheless, he returns to Vegas to continue work with Buck and Wayne, but is greeted instead by Nikita Sokoloff, who takes Jack to an empty airport field and questions him about Ivan's disappearance. In the course of their conversation, Jack learns that Buck and Wayne only owed the Russians $200,000, not the $450,000 that he had been told. Jack tells Nikita that he does not know where Ivan is, and Nikita makes another deal with Jack: he will leave him alone and not question him further about Ivan for a monetary payment, payable every month, and Jack agrees.

Jack continues to shower his family back in Houston with expensive gifts, new houses and fast cars, but knows that he really should be home more, however he can no longer leave Buck and Wayne on their own for fear they might tell someone about Ivan.

Later that year, at an adult film award ceremony, Jack encounters one of the hottest porn stars in the business at the moment - a young woman named Audrey Dawns, who relentlessly flirts with Jack, who eventually gives in and has sex with her.

Meanwhile, Hagerty is still annoyed about being left out of the billing company deal, and behind Jack's back, introduces Buck and Wayne to a programmer called Denny Z, with whom they make a silent partnership to create more sites for which Jack will receive no revenue.

At home, Diana initiates sex with Jack, who continues to space out and becomes disinterested. Diana pieces together that Jack has cheated on her, and tells him that she wants a divorce. Jack is heartbroken, but still returns to Las Vegas and has sex with Audrey once more. They begin a relationship, and Jack begins to frequent Houston even less and less.

Jack re-encounters Sokoloff, who tells him that a pair of FBI agents who have been following Sokoloff for a while have been talking about Jack and Audrey of late, and warns him that they mean business. Jack also learns that Audrey used to work as a stripper in one of Sokoloff's clubs, and that Sokoloff introduced her to Hagerty (who is also Sokoloff's lawyer), who set up her first pornographic venture, which lost her thousands of dollars. Jack learns that Hagerty and Ivan were working together, and that's why Ivan demanded $450,000 and not the $200,000 the Sokoloffs were owed. Jack confronts Hagerty about it, where Hagerty asks Jack if he killed Ivan, which Jack denies.

While Jack confronts Hagerty, the FBI agents following Jack and Audrey visit the latter, and tells her that Afghani terrorists are huge fans of her porn site, and that when they logs on that the US government can track their whereabouts, and they use this information to bomb terrorist cells.

Meanwhile, Buck and Wayne discover that one of the porn sites that they set up with Denny Z currently hosts a 16-year-old engaging in sexual acts, and that they could be found guilty of child pornography. They are terrified of being imprisoned, and their fear is multiplied when they see FBI agents talking with Jack. Buck and Wayne believe that the agents are they to arrest them for child pornography, when in fact they are discussing location trackers on a porn portal that could help the government locate more terrorists who enjoy Jack's sites.

Buck and Wayne go and visit Hagerty in their terror, who advises them to cut Jack from the equation and take over the business themselves. Hagerty will deal with the Denny Z/child porn issue, and in exchange he will become a partner, replacing Jack.

Back in Houston, Jack learns that his son Michael has been charged for hacking into his school's computer system and changing his grades. Using his extensive power, Jack bribes the school with a new gymnasium and blackmails the district attorney with the threat of a media story about the porn billing records that the DA holds with Jack's company.

Back in Vegas, Jack learns about Denny Z's child pornography, and goes to his house party to confront him, where he shoots him in the foot and threatens him. While there, Jack sees Audrey engaging in a threesome with two male porn stars, and is heartbroken. He boots Audrey out of their Las Vegas home, and breaks up with her.

Meanwhile, the FBI agent who Jack helped to catch around 100 Afghani terrorists using Audrey's porn does Jack a favour and lets him know that he is soon to be indicted for child pornography, and that he could do 25 years in jail. He also advises him that the government and the FBI do not care about Ivan's murder, which remains the only reason that Jack has not extricated himself from the business.

Back in Houston, Sokoloff's men break into the Harris home and mistakenly abduct the housekeeper's son Alejandro instead of Jack's son Michael. Jack returns to Houston and goes to see Sokoloff, which is where the film picks up from the beginning.

Sokoloff returns the safe and unharmed Alejandro, but not for the money that Jack has carried - instead, he wants Jack to sign contracts signing over the company to Sokoloff, Hagerty, Buck and Wayne. Jack agrees, however asks Hagerty whether he can backdate his signing of the documents so that he does not screwed by taxation on money he does not have any more. Hagerty agrees, stating that he doesn't see what difference it makes, and allows Jack to backdate the contracts exactly one year. Sokoloff then shoots Hagerty, who dies, and Sokoloff and Buck and Wayne take over the company.

Jack returns home with Alejandro and James, where he reunites with Diana. It is revealed that Buck and Wayne were later interrogated by the FBI agent, and tells them that they are here to talk about child pornography, to which Wayne states that Jack was just as much a part of the child porn that they were. The FBI agent then presents the backdated contracts, which sign over the shares of the company to Sokoloff, Buck and Wayne nearly seven months before the child pornography was hosted by the business, thus revealing why Jack backdated the contracts to begin with.

Through end text, we learn that Buck and Wayne turned state's evidence against Denny Z and served 18 months each of a 5 year sentence; Sokoloff fled the US in the face of the child porn scandal and is believed to be living in Moscow; Audrey continues to work as a porn star; and Jack and Diana never divorced.

Cast

• Luke Wilson as Jack Harris
• Giovanni Ribisi as Wayne Beering
• Gabriel Macht as Buck Dolby
• James Caan as Jerry Haggerty
• User:JesseRafe/Laura_Ramsey as Audrey Dawn
• Jacinda Barrett as Diana Harris
• Kelsey Grammer as District Attorney Frank Griffin
• Terry Crews as James
• Kevin Pollak as Curt Allmans
• Robert Forster as Louie La La
• Rade Šerbedžija as Nikita Sokoloff
• Jesse Jane as herself

Release

Middle Men was released on August 6, 2010.

The first official theatrical trailer for the film was released on June 16, 2010.

A red band trailer was released on July 10, 2010.

A long take sequence taking place at an orgy was cut from the film. The scene's inclusion would have pushed the film from an R rating to an NC17 rating. The scene was subsequently leaked to adult video clip website Pornhub. It was subsequently included on the home-video release.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 41% based on 46 reviews. The site consensus is "Middle Men benefits from a solid cast, particularly Luke Wilson, but its muddled script lets them down". Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 60% based on reviews from 20 critics.

The film grossed only $733,000 at the box office during its three-week run. The budget was $20 million.

Home Media

Middle Men was released February 8, 2011.

Soundtrack

Two soundtrack albums were released, both on August 3, 2010: Middle Men: Original Motion Picture Score, composed by Brian Tyler, and Middle Men: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, collecting songs used in the film.

Score

All songs written and composed by Brian Tyler. 

Track listing
No.	Title	Length
1.	"My Name Is Jack Harris"	1:46
2.	"Middle Men"	2:21
3.	"Tightrope"	2:42
4.	"Wayne And Buck"	2:09
5.	"Broken"	4:07
6.	"Down The Rabbit Hole"	2:47
7.	"Boat Ride"	2:23
8.	"Back To LA"	1:42
9.	"Aimless Electricity Upon Touching"	4:30
10.	"Paranoia"	2:11
11.	"Friendly Warning"	3:22
12.	"Guilt"	3:29
13.	"Trouble"	1:57
14.	"FBI"	2:55
15.	"Alejandro"	2:30
16.	"Full Circle"	2:36
17.	"Middle Men Finale"	3:07

Soundtrack

Track listing
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"Who Do You Love?" (cover of Bo Diddley, 1956; released 1978)	Ellas McDaniel	George Thorogood	4:20
2.	"You Make My Dreams" (1981)	Sara Allen, Daryl Hall, John Oates	Hall & Oates	3:10
3.	"Honey" (1998)	Moby, Bessie Jones	Moby	3:28
4.	"Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)	Jagger/Richards	The Rolling Stones	6:17
5.	"How Bizarre" (1995)	Alan Jansson, Pauly Fuemana	OMC	3:44
6.	"Oye Como Va" (1963)	Puente	Tito Puente	5:49
7.	"Buona Sera" (1956)	Carl Sigman, Peter DeRose	Louis Prima	3:00
8.	"Sweet Dreams (of You)" (cover of Don Gibson, 1956; released 1963)	Don Gibson	Patsy Cline	2:33
9.	"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (1985)	Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, Chris Hughes	Tears for Fears	4:09
10.	"Freeze Frame" (1982)	Seth Justman, Peter Wolf	J. Geils Band	3:56
11.	"Bodyrock" (1999)	Moby	Moby	3:35
12.	"You Can't Always Get What You Want" (1969)	Jagger/Richards	The Rolling Stones	7:28
13.	"The Way You Move" (2003)	Big Boi, Carl-Mo, Sleepy Brown	Outkast (featuring Sleepy Brown)	3:54
14.	"California Love (Remix)" (1995)	Joe Cocker, Woodrow Cunningham, Norman Durham, Mikel Hooks, Ronald Hudson, Christopher Stainton, Larry Troutman, Roger Troutman	2Pac (featuring Dr. Dre & Roger Troutman)	6:23
15.	"24-7"	Tyler	Brian Tyler	5:58
16.	"Middle Men Suite"	Tyler	Brian Tyler	5:56

External links

• Official website
• Middle Men at the Internet Movie Database
• Middle Men at AllRovi
• Middle Men at Box Office Mojo
• Middle Men at Rotten Tomatoes
• Middle Men at the TCM Movie Database
• http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201103/chris-mallick-middle-men?currentPage=1