ROBERT GASTON

Bil’s rating (out of 5): 0

Alternate Title: WebCam, Cam Chat

USA, 2005. Gaston Pictures, Lil Coal’s Big Pictures LLC. Screenplay by Robert Gaston. Cinematography by Doug Gritzmacher. Produced by Robert Gaston, Farrel Lever. Music by Houston Bernard, Warren Cuccurullo, George Draguns.  Podcast: Bad Gay Movies.

Movies about gay men that explore the relationship between sexuality and violence have rarely made less sense than this badly acted, written and directed drama, whose plotting leaves a great deal to be desired.

Manny is distraught over a breakup and refuses to think about dating anyone else, spending his days working on his painting or hanging with his three closest friends, and his nights on a hook-up site that features men masturbating on camera (the footage of which is surprisingly graphic).

After he and his best friend/ex-boyfriend Maury are almost carjacked in a back alley, Manny meets a cop named Hamilton with whom he has an immediate attraction, and who starts shadowing him when a series of murders occur that are linked to the sex website and have personal connections to Manny.

This sounds exciting in description, but director Robert Gaston has no feel for editing or pace and focuses on a series of overlong scenes that never find their dramatic centre, as if he is constantly distracted from the story at hand. If he had as much skill with directing plot as he did for filming graphic sex, we might have a winner here, but as it is there is so much that doesn’t compute that the experience is baffling in all the wrong ways.