Mid-'80s power siblings Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen star in Rated X as San Francisco's real-life Mitchell Brothers, who revolutionized the porn industry in the early '70s with Behind The Green Door and then became ensnared in a tragic web of drug abuse, infighting, and violence. If Rated X's plot and setting suggest a real-life version of Boogie Nights, the similarities didn't escape director Estevez, who indulges in a series of elaborate, shamelessly derivative poolside tracking shots that cross the thin line separating respectful homage and outright theft. Never one to avoid clichés when they can be embraced head-on, Estevez paints the sordid saga of the Mitchell Brothers with the broadest possible strokes. The '60s are introduced with the inevitable flower-powered assemblage of groovy half-naked dancers, peaceniks, and anti-war protests, while the brothers' commercial fortunes are reduced to the lazy shorthand of alternately euphoric and glum opening nights. Following a familiar trajectory of fame and fortune leading to depravity and depression, Rated X chooses cheap effects over truth every time, burying the Mitchells' sad tale in a whirlwind of secondhand flashiness that reeks of desperation. Potentially fascinating subplots concerning the brothers' dealings with the mob and the changes brought about by the emergence of home video are addressed only in passing, while far too much time is allotted to the Sheens' embarrassing late-film coke freak-outs. The story of the Mitchell Brothers may be rife with elements of great drama—jealousy, addiction, fame, greed—but the brothers themselves are surprisingly dull, whether weaselly and responsible (Estevez) or abrasive and self-destructive (Sheen). Shallow, humorless, and far too long, Rated X is all hangover and no high.