Dennis Littrell Emilio Estavez directed this, but one wonders why. It doesn't take a genius to realize that a movie about two porn movie directors is not going to win any Academy Awards. What was Emilio thinking? You can play it as tragedy. You certainly can't make heroes of these guys. I guess what he was thinking was this was a part of America from the sixties to the nineties in the twentieth century--this was the reality and let's tell the truth. but somebody else might say, why bother? Most critics and viewers would call this a prize turkey, but...but is there some redeeming social value? Charlie Sheen and Estavez star as the brothers Mitchell, two entrepreneurial guys who stumble from the free love scene of the sixties in San Francisco to the cash cow of the first widely distributed porn movies, including the infamous "Behind the Green Door." Maybe there is a kind of free speech angle here, with the porno boys fighting the good fight against censorship and Big Brother. On the other hand, there is a didactic tale here about how success corrupts and how sex, drugs and rock and roll--forget the rock and roll; this is almost pure sex and drugs--how sex and drugs may lead you to make a movie called "Sodom and Gomorrah" which may suggest that you ought to be starring it in.Charlie Sheen is very good and so is Estavez. His direction is also not bad. The movie moves right along and the degeneration of the brothers is well expressed. Megan Ward had a chance in a supporting role here, but she failed miserably, possibly because how could she feel any connection with a role that made her the quasi-tolerant, quasi-suffering wife of a man who makes his living pandering to lust (and indulging his own) while smoking, drinking and snorting anything he can get his hands on? Not pretty. However, I wouldn't be surprised if someday in the distant future, long after I am gone, that in some social science class at say Cal Berkeley this movie is played as augmenting an anthropological study of a certain segment of our population in the later part of the 20th century. The students can see this as a film documenting the moral corruption of a nation following Vietnam and the Nixon administration, perhaps even anticipating the moral corruption we see today.But I would advise you to skip this unless you are a big Emilio Estavez fan, in which case this is a must see, or if you are a Charlie Sheen fan, and then it is worth seeing because this is one of his better performances, and you've got to see these guys in their bald domes and their side burns and authentic seventies attire. To be honest, I've seen people win Academy Awards who weren't half as good as Sheen was. Naturally this won nothing.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Anyanwu This film is/was every bit as good as Blow and Boogie Nights(better than Boogie Nights). How this did not get a distributor and had to be shown on Showtime I'll never know. For what ever reason the brother's Estevez were dealt a disservice. This should have been seen on the big screen. I'm sure I will find out but there has to be something behind the scenes as to why this did not get a distributor. The movie was good and the reason it did not get put out was just wrong.

Jose Smirnoff This movie had potential. Maybe not as much potential as Boogie Nights, but potential nonetheless. What really killed this movie for me was the fact that Emilio Estevez tried WAY to hard to be some kind of avant garde director, with fancy angles and cut shots throughout the entire picture. It did nothing more than make me nauseaus.As far as acting, Estevez and Sheen did a fairly decent job of portraying the Mitchell Brothers, however, in the end, the movie doesn't work mainly because they simply just touched on a few of the major events and focused instead on the drugs, which wasn't even very interesting in the first place.There was a reason this movie was on Showtime and not released in major theatres.

vlagal Don't know what Mr. Estevez was thinking; but he wasn't thinking about the script. The script is so full of holes; scenes that start and don't end, whole story lines that are set up but don't get resolved. This is just awful. The worst part is that both the Sheen brothers do a pretty good job of acting, it's just that the story never really goes anywhere and the fancy photography doesn't make up for it.