Ashlynn Brooke And Sadie West Tie A Viscous Ribbon In “Hearts And Minds 2”

"Couples' movies"--the porn term for movies with plots and scripts--fight an uphill battle for the hearts, minds, and pants of consumers. Today we look at New Sensations', er, tentpole movie for 2008 AVN award consideration, the military porn drama "Hearts And Minds 2".

If sex is not integral to the plot of a porn movie, if it is instead peripheral or interstitial, then how should the non-sex aspects of the porn movie be judged? Where stereotypically porny acting showed up (but only occasionally) in movies like Upload and O: The Power of Submission, viewers could at least be consoled with the idea that the movies were about sex and its politics and applications.

Comedy porns like "Pirates" and "The Da Vinci Load" also make up for lower-rent production values by either commenting on themselves or getting out of the way of zesty performances. Hearts And Minds 2: Modern Warfare opens with a search and rescue mission gone awry in a distant and dusty land, and military wife Ashlynn Brooke getting the news stateside.

The first problem is one easily filed under Good Problems to Have: Brooke approaches the fateful news-bearing mailbox looking sweater-bustingly delicious in short jean cutoffs. Whatever the viewer's opinion of the war, he simply cannot understand why Brooke's husband ever left.

Back in Rentallocationistan Brooke's husband, Tommy Gunn, leads a squad of Heroes that have just been told that help isn't coming for a long time. Cassandra Cruz takes the opportunity to have a private pee on some ruins. Then she gets sloppy; finding a jug of water, she gives herself an impromptu sponge bath, fantasizing about fellow grunt Anthony Rosano against a sonic background of what appears to be cut-rate Garage Band Youssou N'Dour-lite. When in Unspecified Arabia...

This is not to say that we don't want Cruz to do exactly this and wind up writhing in the dust like a jackhammer, but I suspect we don't need a whole war movie built around such things.

By now we've settled into how good "Hearts And Minds 2" is For A Porno (FAP). Written and produced by Nic Andrews, long a director of high-end projects for Vivid, New Sensations, and Digital Playground before a three-year hiatus, and directed by Andre Madness, "HAM2" goes the extra mile in making sure all the uniforms look alike and the performers hold their prop weapons the right way.

We don't forgive the movie when the squad of heavily-armed Americans is attacked by all of three jihadists wearing gingham do-rags, or when the cab bringing one of our heroes home inexplicably lingers, but we do appreciate the honest efforts of the performers in delivering dialogue that is not necessarily bad but, in terms of the things any reasonable person expects from a porn movie, is still useless.

As the squad waits to be picked up, its members think about what they left back home. Gunn writes a letter to Brooke and, in a moment both Capraesque and porny, Tyler Knight gets a video message from girlfriend Samantha Ryan, who touchingly tells him that she will be faithful to him aside from the girl that she proceeds to do, by webcam, for his pleasure.

We delight when soldier Jack Lawrence's home reminiscences include not only his hand-built sports car but also newcomer siren Sadie West and, though neither Tommy Gunn nor Army wife Brooke wear wedding rings, he does drop a load on her stomach that most could not summon even after several tours of duty.

So I award "Hearts And Minds 2" an A for effort, and have a new appreciation for reunions with Ashlynn Brooke in the morning sunshine and trysts with Sadie West on the hood of a car. I'm just not sure about the war.

"Hearts And Minds 2" will be released at the end of September.

- Review by Gram Ponante

Hearts And Minds 2: Modern Warfare
Studio: New Sensations
Director: Andre Madness
Cast: Ashlynn Brooke, Sadie West, Tommy Gunn, Cassandra Cruz, Tyler Knight, Jack Larence, Seth Dickens, Marie McCray, Celeste Star, Samantha Ryan, Anthony Rosano

· New Sensations (newsensations.com)
· See also: Meet Sadie West (gramponante.com)