Boys on the Run is a bit like catching someone masturbating: unbearably humiliating, unimaginably awkward but also kind of funny. Tanishi (Kanzunobu Mineta in a performance that will ensure he never dates again) is a 29-year-old virgin whose job is refilling bubble vending machines with novelty items. His coworkers are arrogant bores and gloomy alcoholics. His hobby is porn. The one bright spot in his life is Chiharu (Mei Kurokawa) his cute co-worker who almost treats him like a human being. Could it possibly be that she...gulp...likes him? Even after he accidentally loans her a bestiality porn DVD? All signs point to "yes."

With a little care and attention, Tanishi blossoms into a pretty great boyfriend, but those constant close-ups of his stirring crotch are a sign that Tanishi is also a man and men are dogs and Tanishi manages to screw everything up. To make it even worse, Mei takes up with his co-worker, the hopelessly handsome, infinitely arrogant Ryuhei Matsuda (one of Japanese cinema's sneering, pretty young boys) sending Tanishi spiraling into despair. But like Rocky (or is it Travis Bickle?) he's determined to get his revenge.

Boys is based on a manga by Kengo Hanazawa and it revels – indeed wallows – in all the dirty little details that most romantic comedies leave out: the inopportune boners, the embarrassing bad skin, the awkward silences, the creepy passes from roommates. But as gross as it gets, it's redeemed by the fact that this is all just life, even if we're not used to seeing it in the movies. After all, movie magic glosses over all the dirty ookiness that makes life so strange. But Boys celebrates the ookiness of life, and its matter-of-fact approach, in which absolutely nothing is off limits, eventually becomes downright charming. This is a movie that puts both the "sex" and the "come" back into "sex comedy."