Synopsis:
As Deacon (ERIK VON DETTEN) tells it, it all began on his sixteenth birthday in high school in Cleveland, Ohio. Like teenage boys everywhere, Deacon suffers the tribulations and humiliations of...
As Deacon (ERIK VON DETTEN) tells it, it all began on his sixteenth birthday in high school in Cleveland, Ohio. Like teenage boys everywhere, Deacon suffers the tribulations and humiliations of adolescence - a time when a young man's entire existence is trapped in the relentless grip of hormones he can't control. For Deacon, his sixteenth birthday packs a double whammy: First, he hears from a couple of guys in health class that his sometime girlfriend Rachel (CAMERON RICHARDSON) has gone and had sex with some other guy. This hurts, especially since not long ago Deacon had the opportunity to sleep with Rachel, but for whatever reason couldn't bring himself to do the deed. Then Deacon gets fired from his job at the local video store after his boss catches him with a porno video. This hurts too, especially in the wallet, as Deacon and his two best friends earned their spending cash by illegally pirating the store's sex tapes and selling them to other guys at school.
But at least it's the end of the school year, and Deacon and his buddies can now look forward to the special status they'll enjoy as high school seniors - that is, they could if they weren't such geeks. Deacon's one buddy, Fred (TONY DENMAN), is a compulsive masturbator (if he spent half as much time studying, he'd be an A student) who dreams of being a hotshot like Tony Montana in the movie Scarface. His other friend, Matt (DANIEL FARBER), is the guy no one wants on their basketball team. Matt videotapes just about everything he sees, but forgets to turn the camera on when he gets a sneak peek inside the girls' locker room.
Although Deacon sends out several hundred invitations to his birthday party, no one comes. That's because everyone who is anyone is at another party. Deacon gets up his courage to go to there and has the brief, but nevertheless exquisite, pleasure of having a chat with Naomi (AMY SMART), the most unapproachably beautiful girl at school. Then someone tells Deacon that the real action is out in the swimming pool where everyone is skinny dipping. Deacon strips and jumps into the dark pool. The pool lights go on and everyone laughs at Deacon - he's the only one naked. Deacon is too humiliated to climb out until everyone has left.
Summer comes and drags along. Deacon's only consolation is that he sees Naomi at summer school and she is actually friendly to him. But he and his male friends are in serious need of more pornography. That's when they get the bright idea of making their own. They've got the video equipment, and they can fashion a "studio" in Deacon's basement. All they need are some performers, particularly some girls. They place an ad in the local sex paper, but the only ones to respond are a bunch of drug-addicted prostitutes too unappealing to arouse interest even in these three sex-starved teenagers. They decide they'll have to recruit elsewhere.
At a local strip club, they meet Ashley (SARAH-JANE POTTS), who virtually leaps at the opportunity to make the break from stripping and get into sex films. But Deacon's neighbor Jake (RILEY SMITH) finds out the guys are shooting a porno film, and he demands to be let in on the action or he'll tell Deacon's parents what their son is up to. Jake is Deacon's nemesis; he's a high school bully who thinks he's hot stuff. Deacon's got no choice but to cast Jake as the male lead. Trouble is, Jake's not up to the role. One look at Ashley waiting for him in bed and Jake loses control. There's no way he'll be ready for a second take, and the cameras weren't even rolling for the first.
Meanwhile the boys have started to advertise on the Internet, offering pornography "Made For Virgins - By Virgins." The claim strikes a chord with the buying public, and the orders begin to flow in - first in a trickle, soon in a flood. And they haven't even shot their first video yet.
Word of the boys' exploits in the skin trade spreads through the high school. All of a sudden, these nerds who had been beneath contempt are now being treated as the biggest studs on campus. Deacon even lands a new girlfriend, the incredibly beautiful Naomi.
But their success begins to attract some unwelcome attention. Vic Ramalot (HORATIO SANZ) is a smalltime local hoodlum who makes and distributes his own video porn. (He also likes to perform in these tapes, which is part of the reason the guys always found them so laughable.) Vic is not at all pleased to learn that these new kids on the block are moving in on his territory.
Not only do they have a gangster gunning for them, but as the boys soon discover, the world of sleazy sex films is not all glitter and glamour. Once the initial thrill wears off, there's a lot of tedious hard work, not to mention the unpleasant mess to clean up after. Complicating matters even further, Jake threatens once again to expose their smut-making activities to the authorities. And Deacon's ex-girlfriend Rachel - for whom he has carried a torch all along - comes back to town at the start of the school year. The rumors about her having sex with some other guy were pure fabrications, and she's ready to get back together with Deacon, who by now is going out with Naomi.
It seems the boys have gotten more than they bargained for in trying to become junior Spielbergs of smut. Now these budding geniuses have to get themselves out of the mess they've gotten into - which turns out to be the wackiest, sexiest series of comic misadventures ever to take place in high school.
Directed by David Mickey Evans from an original screenplay by David H. Steinberg, Barely Legal is a production of Motion Picture Corporation of America and Original Voices. The executive producers are Gerhard Schmidt and David Kirkpatrick.
The producers are Brad Krevoy, Klaus Rettig and Keetgi Kogan. The associate producer is Amy Ostrower. The line producer is Lisa Towers. The director of photography is John Aronson; production designer Brent Thomas, costume designer Jori Woodman, and the editor is Harry Keramidas.
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