Gallery
The documentary took five years to produce, with over three years of filming. Through interviews with 77 persons, the film profiles 10 different members of the U.S. porn industry in the , where 80% of films are produced. While focusing on the actors, the documentary also covers individuals involved in production.
Among the film’s many interviewees are 2006 winner , former porn star and Director of the Dr. , stripper-turned-porn star/director , as well as Katja Kassin, Otto Bauer, , , , Roxy Deville, Mia Rose, and filmmaker Jim Powers.
Matt Prigge of wrote that while the documentary “deserves credit for trying to find as many angles from which to look at an industry as successful as it is loathed”, it dealt too much with “vacuous porn star confessionals”, its scope was too wide, the film lacked organization, and that “its take on the biz sometimes seems less complex than schizophrenic.”
Conversely, Cameron McGaughy of wrote that whether “you’re a porn addict, a lover of revealing documentaries or just a curious voyeur, you certainly won’t be bored with these 100 minutes.” He felt that director Hoffman kept enough distance from the subject matter to allow viewers to decide for themselves. McGaughy was “surprisingly pleased with Hoffmann’s effort”, summarising that the film was “amusing, brutal, candid, honest, hysterical and heartbreaking” and that porn aficionados will find themselves “entertained and enlightened”.
The offered that he expected either a “gritty, highly-critical depiction of the porn industry, or a cheap, sexy fluff-piece produced and promoted by the porn industry.” In admitting he was wrong in his original expectation, he wrote, “Amazingly, director Jens Hoffman crafts a surprisingly objective film, one that shows both the ups and downs of an industry that contains plenty of them, while avoiding ever preaching to either side.”
