Pornography: A Thriller

Pornography: A Thriller may have a few interesting things to say about porn. But thrills? Not so much. What begins as an ambitious, segmented meditation on a missing gay-porn star (Grey) and the journey of one writer (Montgomery) into a violent, voyeuristic heart of darkness eventually devolves into a routine Lynchian head trip. The long, strange trip of another stud-for-hire (Scherer) experiencing haunted dreams completes the narrative three-way. Taken independently, these chapters probe the thorny porn star–viewer exchange, but Kittredge can’t connect the dots into a worthy climax. In other words: all foreplay, no full release.