"Middle Men" argues pretty convincingly that Internet commerce wouldn't be possible without porn. Two cocaine-driven would-be pornographers named Wayne (Giovanni Ribisi, "Avatar") and Buck (Gabriel Macht, "The Spirit") invented the credit card protocol that makes buying over the Internet possible--and then came close to capsizing from their own indulgences and some bad decisions involving Russian mobsters. That's where Jack Harris (Luke Wilson, "The Royal Tenenbaums") came in. Harris is simply a levelheaded guy who can see solutions where others only see problems--and he sees the potential to make more money than even Buck and Wayne had dreamed. What's most surprising about "Middle Men" is how a movie based on a true story featuring porn stars and Russian gangsters has turned out a bit bland--particularly since it's written and directed by George Gallo, who wrote one of the most character-rich screenplays ever, "Midnight Run". Of course, as one of the movie's producers is the man on whom Jack Harris is based, it was unlikely that Harris would be depicted as anything but a fundamentally decent guy who lost his way for a while. Despite this, "Middle Men" features an abundance of entertaining supporting performances (Kelsey Grammer, James Caan, Kevin Pollack, and Robert Forster make pungent appearances) and many of the true-to-life twists are startling. Above all, Rade Serbedzija ("Before the Rain") gives the movie a jolt of pure menace as the Russian mob boss. "--Bret Fetzer"