Free Enterprise

William Shatner: I'm not really here. I'm one of the top ten imaginary friends kids have. Just behind John Travolta, Reggie Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors.

Mark: Do you wish Rhett never loved Scarlett? Rick didn't have Ilsa or Harry never met Sally? Someone once said it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Succeed or fail, we must make the attempt, it's our nature. Now if it were up to me, as it usually is, I would order this. But its not. Because Claire is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any relationship with a man as intelligent but fantastically flaky as Robert. But I must point out the possibilities, the potential, for true love and happiness are equally great. Risk... risk is our business. That's what relationships are all about. That's why we're out there.

Swingers for geeks.

Mark is a high-strung magazine editor who has no luck with women. His friend Rob has plenty of luck, but he can never keep them around due to his propensity for spending the rent money on special limited edition action figures and first edition Sandman comics. They're pushing 30 and starting to wonder if they'll ever find true love.

One day they bump into William Shatner at a bookstore and strike up a friendship. At first they expect Shatner will be able to give them advice and life and love, but they quickly realize that he's just as screwed up as they are.

Tropes used in Free Enterprise include:
  • Adam Westing: William Shatner.
  • Auto Erotica: While the car is moving. Works okay when the driver is receiving oral sex. When he tries to give it, things go horribly wrong.
  • Black and Nerdy: Eric, who lampshades the lack of other black characters by asking Rob, "Where are all your friends of color?"
  • Fridge Brilliance: In one of the early fantasy sequences, Imaginary William Shatner suggests to young Robert that Starfleet gold is not his color and that he should "Think earth tones." When we first see the adult Robert in the very next scene, he's followed the Shat's advice and is dressed entirely in earth tones.
  • Geek Physiques: Subverted, kinda. They aren't studly manly-men, but they do shoot hoops for fun.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: Mark has this fetish, which Rob satiates by hiring an exotic dancer in green body-paint for his birthday.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Mark and Rob. In a more extreme example, Rob and Sean share women on occasion.
  • Marty Stu: A movie about two geeks named Mark and Rob who meet William Shatner and learn valuable lessons about relationships ... written by Mark Altman and directed by Robert Meyer Burnett.
  • Nerds Are Virgins: Averted with Rob, who has no trouble bedding women, though he fails relationships forever. Mark has a sex life, but he describes it as "8 1/2 Weeks -- Fellini meets Psycho." Played straight with Dan, who uses pickup lines like "Wrote my number in case you feel like docking at my moonbase some evening." There's also Schweiger, who's signed up for dating services and claims, "Thirty-two years, man, and the only bush I've seen has been in my front yard."
  • One-Hour Work Week: Averted. Mark is shown working on Saturday night. When a friend drops in and asks him to go clubbing, he declines because he has a deadline to meet. When Rob leaves work early for a date, he gets fired.
  • Talking to Himself: Played with. Mark (the character) gets yelled at by his cousin in the basketball scene. Mark's cousin is played by Mark (the writer), who is who Mark (the character) is based off of.
  • Technology Marches On: Mark and his friends are avid collectors of movies on Laserdisc.

Mark Altman (Writer/Producer): "[W]e refused to even acknowledge the existence of DVD, instead extolling laserdiscs incessantly throughout the film, [a format] which was already in its death throes, a decision which dates the movie worse than any other decision we made on that film."

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