Reviews: 'The Last American Virgin' is gloomy and has no virgins

"The Last American Virgin - R       

     Teen comedy and dark satire aside, this is one of the stupidest movies ever made. Really. Staple teen comedy, er drama, idea really, teen boys try to get laid, girl gets pregnant, stoners are there, and oddly enough there is an abortion. Unfortunately, Boaz Davidson is a sicko and decides to show the abortion room, and to strip down the actress to show the only full nude scene, while she's crying her eyes out. (This is a comedy)? This is just wrong. As a young teenager at the time, I found this movie gross and disturbing, not funny or even titillating at all. It was a horror movie, not a comedy, and not a good horror movie either. Later on, a rental confirmed it was actually lowbrow drivel. Not only that, the title is misleading. Nobody in the flick is a virgin! And it ends with the ridiculous non-ending of having the hero end up walking away like muted and neutered pansy, and he takes no responsibility for any of it. Crap. Festering crap. 

     This movie doesn't know what it's trying to be. It at first appears to be edgy teen comedy, but so much of it is peppered with angry and dark tones that it comes off as a drama, or even at times a horror movie. Like later 'Kids' it is raw and probably not something a young teen would have liked, at all. Unlike it's cousin, 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High', a lighthearted almost feminist take on the 'boy's first time' movies of the time, this brooding little farce doesn't know if it wasn't to be cynical or just plain mean. 

     Part of this is the director's fault. The story is based upon his earlier work, Lemon Popsickle,by all accounts an equally dreary movie.  Boaz seems obsessed with showing how he personally was screwed over by the friends he thought he had. That's the main problem. 

     In Fast Times, Heckerling does not include an obvious foil for herself, well maybe the girl at the pool, but she is not brooding about it. Clearly her life turned out just fine. 

     And yes there are actually no virgins in the movie by the end, and everyone is bitter for it. Maybe in a decade they will all be forgotten or dead, while those in the other film will be senators or something. Clearly the tone fails, and really the only reason for it being an R rated movie was the depressing nude scene and the cussing.
     Review by Adam Browne