I haven't done a movie review in a long time, mostly because it's hard to find one that doesn't begin with "after the death of his wife" or "to win the girl of his dreams." But the Killer Heat trailer showed two muscular guys, no semi-nude ladies, and no boy-girl kissing. That's good enough for me.
Scene 1: The gams of a hot guy, Richard Madden, climbing a mountain. His hands, legs, biceps, face, as gumshoe Nick Bali, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, tells us about Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. Suddenly Hot Guy falls to his death!
Cut to his funeral procession in a Greek village. Newspaper headline: he was Leo Vardakis, son of the ultra-rich Vardakis family.
Scene 2: On an airplane, Bali mourns -- maybe he was the guy's boyfriend -- and continues to think about Icarus: "That's the thing about myths. Easy to ignore."
A Broad with Legs Down To Here meets him at the airport. Yes, he mentions them. After a few minutes devoted to flirting and describing her eyes and...gams...we learn that she is Mrs. Vardakis, sister-in-law of the dead guy, and his death was...drum roll, please...NO ACCIDENT! But no one will investigate because the optics are bad for the Vardakis stockholders.
"But why pay for an investigation that will cause your family to hate you?"
"Leo was my friend." Oh, so Leo was gay. More room for you to move in, Balky Buddy
Scene 3: Baldy follows The Broad up the narrow, curving roads and onto a dirt road to a ramshackle...monastery? You're not going to get any skirts that way, Jackson. But maybe one of the monks are hot.
Left: Joseph Gordon-Levitt butt.
Esconced in his cell -- um, room -- Baldur umpacks his stuff, and tries to drink enough to black out -- don't you have falling-in-love to do? Oh, he flashes back to his dead wife and kid. There's always a dead wife, but the kid is a less overdone angle.
Guess whether it's a boy or a girl. Yep, of course.
Scene 4: Down in the village, Bulky bribes a cop to see the police file. Wait -- if it was an accident, why is there a police file? Injuries consistent with falling off a mountain. But his fingers were broken, as if he was trying to hang on.
Next he interviews the arresting officer, Georges Mensah, played by Babou Ceesay, and his little dog, too. Great name, and nice bulge. Dude is hostile and suspicious, moreso when Bummer points out that he was taking photos at the funeral.
We get a rundown of the family. Hey, Leo had a twin brother, Elias! He's the one with the "perfect wife" that Balfour is in love with. "Every couple is unhappy in its own way," he says, "But who was unhappy with Leo?" Some guys are single?
More after the break
Scene 5: Next Baltimore spies on the yacht, parked out in the harbor: the family looking at papers and arguing. The Twin Brother, who has gams down to here -- Balki's words, not mine -- approaches his Hot Wife, but she rejects him, so he takes the dinghy to shore, jumps in his car, and zooms off. Bali is apparently bi.
He zooms to the "public climbing cliff" where his brother was squashed, and climbs it without a rope! On his way down, Boron makes contact. Yes, it is played out as a gay pickup.
Scene 6: While Bali and the Twin Brother with Gams Down to Here are having their coffee date, Cop Georges Mensah is listening in!
Twin says that his Perfect Wife woke him at 8:30 am with the news of his brother's death. He hadn't seen Leo for three weeks, because they had an fight and weren't talking.
Bilko is shocked. Three weeks without seeing your own brother?
"Is that weird?" Twin asks. "How often do you see your brother?"
"I don't have a brother," Baldi tells him.
"Ok, then, family. Mother, father, wife." Yep, every man in existence has a wife.
"So...um...was your Perfect Wife close to your brother?" "Nope." Weird, she said they were friends.
Twin makes an excuse and leaves. Boring watches him zoom off with an obvious bulge. Dude is bi, I'm telling you. Or maybe just hung. He then cozies up to the Cop, admits that he's a private dick, and suggests that they date...um, work together.
Scene 7: In the Cop's office, they go over the tape of the coffee date and conclude that the Twin is hiding something. Hey, there's a chair right over there. No need to get right up in the Cop's lap.
"He's jealous of something!" Bali exclaims. Cop objects: "He's got everything a man could want. Money, power, a beautiful wife." Forgot that gay men exist yet again? I'm getting annoyed at being told that I don't exist.
Bali continues: "Something doesn't fit." What kind of private dick are you? It's obvious that the Twin's Beautiful Wife was cheating with Leo.
Scene 8: Next Bitchy checks out another funeral attendee, Yannis, a fixer, played by Manos Gavras. Whenever a high roller comes to the island, he fixes them up: "Drugs, parties, women." So not a single one of those guys is gay? Not one in a thousand?
I'm getting tired. Sure, it's fun to pretend that Birkenstock is bisexual, but we all know that nothing will come of it. Besides, this movie features every cliche that your Creative Writing teacher told you to avoid, and the plot is being broadcast very loudly from the word go. Decider calls it "astonishly unmemorable."
I'll just fast-forward to see if Ballsy and the Cop kiss in the last scene, or at least team up as "where shall we go now?" partners, or if there are any other gay references.
Left: Billy Clements plays the Fixer's Fixer.
Nope. Bali complains about the Twin being too gorgeous -- dressed like a male model -- "Everybody wants to suck his cock." But he's being metaphorical.
In the last scene, the Cop is absent. The Gal with the Gams convinces Bodacious to return to his wife: Big Reveal, she's not dead, just estranged. Everybody lives happy and heterosexual ever after.
Beefcake: Just the opening scenes with the guy gams.
Other Sights: Since they're in Crete, shouldn't they visit the Palace of Knossos, one of the most fabulous archaeological discoveries in history?
Or some other sites of the ancient Minoan civilization?
How about a discussion of Linear A, which has not yet been translated?
Heterosexism: Nobody actually dates, but hetero-romance wins.
Gay Characters: Heck, no. Everyone proclaims, loudly, that they do not exist.
Cliche: Every cliche except Bali and the Gams don't go at it, and the wife isn't dead, she's just estranged so they can get back together at the end of the movie. But that's a cliche, too.
In case you're unsure whether gay men exist.
See also: Paul Mescal: Does he appear in anything good? Is it ok to post cock pics?
Ripley: A slow, artistic version of the gay con artist/murderer, with Tom's bum and Dickie's dick.
BJ's Angels: A "Charlie's Angels" parody starring Joel Rush, Peter Kaasa, and Skyler Gisondo
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ReplyDeleteI was curious about this one - did you see the Perfect Couple on Netflix- no gay characters except for the wedding planner- but there is a bit of beefcake in the shape of Jack Reynor
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