Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. First, I give Fired Up a pass and then I popped Sex Drive into the DVD machine and what do you know? I kind of like it too. Actually, I would say it goes a little further than “kind of,” because this stuff is comic gold. While prepared to write off Sex Drive (actually based on the book called All the Way by Andy Behrens) as a stupid “getting my buddy laid” romp, it actually delivers the funny. Not only do big kids Seth Green and James Marsden come out on all cylinders, but the new kids have some serious chops too. Surprises are fun, but finding a good movie out of low expectations is better.

Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is a virgin. He’s having an IM relationship with the not-so-subtly named Ms. Tasty, who’s dying for him to drive from his Chicago suburb to Knoxville, Tenn. for a night of passion in reckless abandon. Ian, who is always ever so cautious, is uncertain, but his horn dog buddy Lance (Clark Duke) plays devil on the shoulder and gets Ian to jack his brother Rex’s (Marsden) ’69 GTO Judge to go and rendezvous with Ms. Tasty. Somehow, Ian’s crush and BFF Felicia (Amanda Crew) finds her way into the mix on the rollicking road trip that has the trio encountering church-and-state fairs, red neck rubes and surprisingly hip Amish people.

The film is filled with gross out gags, pointless nudity and repeated acts of humiliation and degradation, usually at the expense of Ian’s dignity. Fortunately Zuckerman is an able and talented lead, allowing himself to be a punching bag of one sort of embarrassment or another, including repeated incidents of getting literally caught with his pants down. Duke is smarmily fantastic as Lance, constantly pushing Ian to greater degrees of desperation concerning the quest for sex. Lance’s arc is also the most surprising, and I give the filmmakers credit for coming up with an original twist for a stale sex-com archetype. Rounding out the main triad, Crew is cute, charming and a tremendous straight-woman foil to the two guys.

But this film is owned by the relatively small parts played by Green and Marsden. Especially Marsden because I can’t really think of a film off the top of my head where he was allowed to cut loose and play wild; even in big superhero movies he plays the boring straight arrow. But in Sex Drive he gets to play crude, rude and just a little bit fanatical about the safety and security of his car, and he’s brilliant at it. Green, of course, is pitch-perfect as a sarcastic, chain-smoking Amish mechanic. You can tell Green’s relaxed and having a good time with the part that definitely plays to his strengths as a comedic actor. Plus, he creates some of the most uncomfortable, situational comedy I’ve seen outside an episode of The Office.

Yes, as a number of people have pointed out, the movie itself is incredibly average story-wise and follows in the wake of better offerings from true players like Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow. No worries though because like a certain aforementioned cheerleading comedy, Sex Drive elevates itself beyond the ordinary by smart casting and genuinely funny humour. The unrated edition on the DVD basically features more gratuitous nudity, which results in a longer film that sacrifices story for more of “what you want;” but at an hour and 50 minutes, it already seems a bit too long any how. For my part though, the theatrical cut has everything I needed, which is comedy. And lots of it.