The highest compliment an AVN reviewer can give to any tape is to leave the fast-forward button untouched.

For the year and a half-plus this reviewer has been working for AVN, the fast-forward button has been pushed time and time again, whether to block out excruciating dialogue or superfluous sex scenes.

But not this time.

With its high production values and engaging storyline, The Ass Collector is an ambitious, nom-worthy project that puts the spotlight on Rocco Siffredi's skills as a director. It's a video feature with guns and car chases, but it also has the sort of balls-out hardcore sex that makes a production shot by Rocco the furthest thing from dull.

Opening the feature with a police raid with all the fixings - submachine gun-armed SWAT officers, helicopter-borne snipers - detective Siffredi is given the slip by the insane Ass Collector, played by Chris Knight (usually billed as Chris News). In a daring break from the usual soft touch of story-driven porn, Siffredi pulls no punches in showing Knight's character as a truly disturbed individual, slinking around his collection of captured women in lingerie, high heels, and make-up, screaming at them every so often, asking them why he "can't be beautiful."

Siffredi sends in Melinda Casta playing a psychologist sent to help Siffredi track the psychopath down, to investigate a potential suspect, played by Franco Roccoforte, and finds herself in a den of decadence and debauchery, with a roomful of players indulging in fucking fatties, cornholing older women - and even some male-on-male action. Yep, there's a quick gay blowjob sequence in here. Retailers, you may want to affix some type of warning label to the box; solo strokers with little tolerance for gay sex may be very displeased otherwise.

Casta submits herself to a gangbang in the hideout, all in the name of research (and billable hours, no doubt) and is kidnapped by the Collector. Though Knight is ultimately captured, Casta and the other prisoners of the Collector are still lost. Siffredi the dives into the Collector's mind find to where the women are hidden. While Siffredi's venture into plot-porn is a welcome change of pace, the fact that he doesn't forget what butters his bread ensures sales for the video.

On the DVD side, the transfer is beautiful, with Evil Angel going above their usually excellent par to superb. All stops were pulled for the two-disc set, which includes, on the first disc, surround sound in Dolby 5.1, production photo gallery and a list of cast members by scene (a handy reference for overworked reviewers). The second disc includes extra scenes, which, unlike the bonus footage of other discs, isn't just extras from editing, and are just as hot as the other sex scenes in the movie and a making-of, though Siffredi speaks Italian through most of the footage. The set also includes a bonus CD of the soundtrack.

Pre-noms abound: Best Video, Best Anal-Themed Feature, Best Videography (Jack Remy), Siffredi for Best Director - Video, Best Editing - Video (MadMax), Best Actor - Video (Kriss Knight), Best Supporting Actor - Video (Siffredi), Best Anal Sex Scene - Video (Siffredi and Tiffany), and Best Group Sex Scene - Video for Rocco's 11-way with Nikita, Cindy, Monik, Karib, Katalin, Niky, Petra Short, Henrietta, Sheila Scott, Veronica B. and Stella Virgin.

On the DVD side: Best DVD, Best DVD Menus and Best DVD Extras, on the strength of the additional sex scenes.