tlutzy The good: very well acted all around and nice cinematography. The bad: one cliché after another from the over-weight, suspendered right-wing politician with the alcoholic wife to the on-again off-again "relationship" between Anthony and Henry, to the self-destructive HIV- positive roommate who is "saved" by true love. The plot moves from one predictable moment to another, and that's what really ruins this film. The part involving the senator's limo and Izzy is totally unbelievable, especially what happens after. The premise of the story -- that Henry would tell his story to a reporter after it had been plastered throughout the news media -- is also unbelievable. Other aspects are good, particularly the acting by all. Henry is appropriately arrogant, vulnerable and defiant. Karen Allen is great as the long-suffering mother.

preppy-3 Republician senator Jack Kray (Michael Lerner) and his wife Eunice (Karen Allen) want to get their son to introduce him at a rally. The problem is that son Henry (Matt Newton) hates his father and is hiding the fact that he's gay. He falls in love with activist Anthony (Jack Noseworthy) and things come to a head.PLOT SPOILERS!!! Pretty bad indie film. The plot is obvious and meandering and the film takes detours into various other plot lines that seem to have nothing to do with the main story (I'm still trying to figure out what Izzy is doing here). Also there's a guy on guy kiss at the end which IS necessary for the story--but it's so obvious that the guys AREN'T kissing on the lips (that guy is being kissed on the cheek) that its impact doesn't come across at all. I realize the actors probably aren't gay but that's no excuse. Kissing a guy on the lips is not going to destroy your career. It's also badly shot with lousy direction, horrendous editing and terrible lighting (everybody looks washed out). To make matters worse there's annoying "music" and sounds on the soundtrack that are more distracting than anything else. The final nail in the coffin was terrible acting. Allen and Lerner are OK but Noseworthy is bad and Newton is TERRIBLE! I don't care how good-looking he is--he can't act. He is obviously not gay and seems very uncomfortable in the role. As I said before he couldn't even kiss a guy on the lips. Aside from all that it's deadly dull. I dozed off 45 minutes into the film!On the plus side some of the guys were cute and shown in their underwear (no nudity though) and the last 30 minutes are actually pretty good--but that's too little too late. A few good speeches at the end can't save this one. Slow, boring and condescending. Avoid. I give this a 2.

Franco-LA It isn't necessarily a bad thing that a first time director is working from a script with first time writers; I've seen worse films where a first time director wrote the script. However, this film would have been better served by either some more experience (or polish) on the writing end and, probably, with a director who was willing to make the necessary changes.For example, when the Noseworthy character admits to his "best friend" that he too, slept with her dead boyfriend, it seems pointless and isn't and doesn't go anywhere, not even to an "I'm sorry for hurting you, Izzy" comment from Noseworthy's Anthony character. The beginning of the film, where the young man walks away from the Anthony character's bed exists purely to show the character would be petulant because guys walk out on him after sleeping with him -- so when the Henry Kray character does it, of course, he needs revenge by messing up the Henry's entire life. These elements are just so predictable or undeveloped as to ruin the opportunity the film has to be something new or unique.Even the basic story, since it's one that has been the plot of a few trashy trade paperback gay novels and even the plot of a few trashy 'JO' (since IMDb doesn't like the more precise verbiage) stories in gay male adult magazines, needed more development than it got. I actually felt Karen Allen's performance was good, although the accent was a bit jarring. Unfortunately, too much time was spent developing her character for too little pay off. If she was going to walk away from the Senator at the end and the Senator and his son haven't reconcile, what happened to her, especially if he won re-election? Too much time is also spent with the Izzy character, especially in context with the Senator's wife, since again, there is no pay-off.And while getting drunk and having coffee is certainly the way for a relationship to begin, there was nothing on screen to justify Noseworthy doing this, especially since they don't end up together in the end.If the director couldn't see the flaws in the script and fix them, he was the major problem. If the writers didn't realize these kinds of problems, they need a good editor. As it was, I gave the movie a better mark than I normally might for trying something different than you might normally see in a gay movie and for good performances by the leads, who were undermined by the script and clearly did the best they could with their dialog and situations, and didn't make them any worse. Hopefully, both will get better roles (or make better decisions about the roles they take) in the future.

ace-150 I started out disliking this, but ended up rather enjoying it. The cinema verite style was very hard for me to get past. It seems really contrived, particularly because several of the characters were absolute caricatures. The senator and his wife were cartoonishly unambiguous and the bitter friend seemed like unnecessary set dressing. Comedically evil right wing conservative and hand-held cam make for strange bedfellows. I came around during the Palm Springs hooker scene, just because it didn't go for the obvious gambit. That did cut the potential smarminess of the whole coming out agenda. The narrative convention of the reporter and protagonist is also absurdly contrived. Having said those things, Jack Noseworthy really puts the thing over. If he smiled at me, I'd probably throw my whole life away, too. Ultimately, the movie isn't really about gayness or politics. It's about grown children allowing, or not allowing, their parents to control them.