Today let’s go back in time, to the year 2001, when most people didn’t have access to the internet (or even know much about it) and those who did were still accessing it via AOL, using dial-up, on big bulking home computers. Things like mobile and broadband might as well have been science fiction back then. Social Networking, as we know it, didn’t even exist yet, as Myspace was still 2 years away. It was a wild time.

This film, written by Leland Zaitz and directed by John Quinn, used the internet, and the dotcom bubble, as it’s backdrop. Although by the time this film was released, we were about halfway through what would later be down as the bursting of the dotcom bubble, it was still a time where people were thinking that anyone with a good website idea was going to be the next Bill Gates.

Marklen Kennedy, credited here as Jack Lincoln and whom I just discovered created and produced the reality show Gigolos) and Sebastien Guy star as Ben and Jeff, two budding internet entrepreneurs who have developed and created a website called romancenow.com, which is basically a dating site, or an site for online personal ads (so okcupid mixed with craigslist?). They’re preparing to take the company public and are expecting to become billionaires in the IPO.

Ben in a relationship with a woman named Caitlin (Kelli McCarty), a yoga instructor, who he’s beeing dating for 2 years, and when the film opens Jeff hooks up with a woman named Sara (Tracy Ryan, credited as Tracy Angeles) whom he had just hired to be the new spokesmodel for their website, and when she reveals that she doesn’t have a place to say he immediately offers to let her stay with him until she finds a place to stay. Lately, Caitil has been acting differently, according to Ben. She’s always busy and won’t tell him where she’s been, and he begins to suspect that she’s cheating on him. And with the prospect of him becoming so rich after the IPO, he wants to figure out if she can be trusted and isn’t just with him for his money. So he asks Jeff to hit on her, to see if she’ll cheat on him. Jeff tries and Caitlin rejects him, so Ben is happy. But after Sara hits Jeff up for money, first so she can shoot a new modeling portfolio and then so she can launch her own modeling studio, Jeff worries that Sara is just after his money and convinces Ben to try to hit on her. Ben tries and succeeds, which makes him feel guilty. So he doesn’t tell Jeff (or Caitlin) what happened and instead pressures him to try and seduce Caitlin again, figuring that if he succeeds then he and Jeff will be “even”, as will he and Caitlin, and Ben won’t feel guilty for sleeping with Sara.

Yeah, it’s a bit convoluted and, without spoilers, I’ll just say that this leads to a lot of confusion and hurt feelings and soon the very future of their company is in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot in the film involving Glen and Rayna (Peter Gaynor and Miyoko Fujimori aka Flower Edwards), who are employees working for Romance Now. They’ve been with the company since the beginning and have stock options which will make them millionaires if the IPO goes as well as it is expected to. They get into a debate about whether men or women can handle casual sex better, and make a bet for 20% of the others’ stock options to see which one can find and sleep with 4 new partners before the IPO launches in 2 weeks. I’ll spoil this plot by sending that they end up realizing that they want to be with each other. So its a happy ending for them.

Along the way, we get several explicit sex scenes. Kellis McCarty is in 2 sex scenes, one with Kennedy and one with Guy. She’s also in a solo scene where she takes a shower a masturbates. Tracy Ryan also has 2 sex scenes one with Kennedy and one with Guy. There’s also a hot scene that is sort of 2 scenes in one. Susan E. Hale aka Darby Daniels and Toni Taylor play Caitlin’s roommates, whom Jeff meets when he goes over to her apartment to hit on her. The two ladies have lesbian sex together in a hot scene and then Guy’s character joins in for a threesome sex scene. That was definitely the highlight of the film (and good to see Taylor, a Black woman, in this film as there aren’t many Black women in these softcore films). and then you have Gaynor and Fujimori, who have a scene together, plus Fujimori has a sex scene with Brian Bianchini, who plays a delivery man who comes to the office, and Gaynor has a sex scene with Antoinette Abbott, who plays a woman he met on the website.

The film’s premise may be a bit light, these are grown men, presumably very smart, so it’s hard to imagine they’d both agree to such a dumb plan to test their girlfriends’ loyalty. The resolution is a bit too pat for reality as well. But the cast are all good actors and make their roles seem believable. I do like subplot story a little better, it’s well-written the way it gives everyone in the side-character something to do. Both plots are good in the way they naturally work for including sex scenes in a natural way. And each of those sex scenes is incredible, McCarty and Ryan are two of the hottest actresses to ever appear on softcore. So this film is definitely worth it.

Chacebook rating: FIVE STARS

Jason Majercik is selling this Unrated DVD for $39.99. Email him at quinn_nash@hotmail.com for his softcore inventory list.