No Man's Land 11

"No Man's Land 11" isn't much different than most all-girl films in the way it approaches its five sex scenes, but it is more up front about it. It's also remarkably consistent, which makes it a wonderful example of what's wrong with so much lesbian porn these days. To get the most out of it, you must agree with it's philosophy, and that's a tough pill to swallow if you like your girl-on-girl action hot and steamy. Jeanna Fine, in one of her introductory segments to the sex scenes, lays it all out in nine words. "That's the beauty of pornography," she says, "it's all in jest."

What this means, practically speaking, is not that the girls joke their way through sex (although that's only logical), but that they joke their way through what passes for foreplay, then get down to business as though nothing had happened. Might as well skip the jokes and cut to the chase, which is what this kind of filmmaking is all about anyway, throwing two or three girls in front of the camera and letting them go at each other?which sounds like a pretty good recipe until you turn on the radio and cringe at the latest derivative pop song somebody's trying to pass off as something new or worthwhile. Sex for the sake of sex isn't anything new, and unless it's hot as hell it isn't particularly worthwhile either.

The funny thing about this film is, it's half right. Another of Jeanna's pronouncements?it's her first one, actually?comes closer to the truth. "Who needs writers?" Jeanna asks. "This isn't Tolstoy, it's sex. Just give the performers a scenario and let them do what they do best." "NML 11" is full of scenarios. There's the door-to-door saleslady in the first scene, the sympathetic neighbor in the second, the pizza delivery chick in the third, and so on. All perfectly serviceable starting points for a director or his stars to create something of real value. The reason that doesn't happen here is the disconnect between the scenario and the sex that follows, the inevitable result of that "let them do what they do best" mentality. (A mentality which, by the way, needn't single out writers as the only superfluous element in porn, but directors also. A competent cameraman is all the performers would need to do their business.) So instead of building upon the scenario, extending it into the sex itself, the scene fractures when the sex begins and all that's left, again, is two or three girls going at it.

The best of the "go-at-its" here is P. J. Sparxx, though that's possibly nothing more than personal preference. She is cute, though, and one of the film's best moments is when she goes down on what appears to be a blonde Nicole London in the third scene. That's the pizza delivery scene and P. J. is the one carrying the goods. Like all the other scenes, the scenario here is treated as a joke. (Jeanna herself refers to the second scene as the "Sympathetic Neighbor Routine.") Speaking as one who, once upon a long time ago, used to deliver pizza, I don't see anything wrong with taking this premise seriously, at the very least as legitimate fantasy material. Instead, P. J.'s in on the game once Nicole says she doesn't have any money. She's knows what's coming next and she both accepts and expects it; there's none of the fist-pumping, hot-damn attitude one would expect from a guy or girl who could only dream of being so lucky.

Jeanna herself, as headliner, appears in two scenes, the first (in the housewife role, with Kaitlyn Ashley as the saleslady) and the last, an orgy scene, the most memorable moment of which is seeing Girl A's foot in Girl B's snatch (and it's not that I don't remember who the two girls are, I just don't think we ever get to see). Neither scene is anything special, but it's worth noting the trend that is set in the first scene because it pretty powerfully demonstrates the level of imagination at work here. Jeanna does what she does best on a sofa; Sindee Coxx and Debi Diamond follow that with their best shot on another sofa; finally P. J. and Nicole, in a claustrophobic hat-trick, make love on yet another sofa. If ever there was a film that needed to be "opened up," this is it.

By today's standards, "NML 11" qualifies as average all-girl fare. True, the sex is repetitious, the sets are claustrophobic, and the direction vacuous, but the girls are attractive and the production value (specifically the lighting and camerawork) are adequate. It's like a fuck that doesn't really satisfy but at least takes the pressure off for a while.