Movie Review – Cock and Bull Story (2003)

Overall Quality 1.5 / 5.0 (don’t bother)
Gay Content 2.5 / 5.0 (homophobia is the primary theme, but only one minor gay character)
Gay Positivity 1.0 / 5.0 (very gay negative)

Ugly, brutish, and more than a little dumb. If that describes your perfect film, knock yourself out. As for myself, I am underwhelmed.

On the bright side, I thought the cinematography was surprisingly well done for a low budget movie. The grittiness meshed well with the material. The principal actors, particularly Bret Roberts as Travis and Brian Austin Green (yeah, that one) as Jacko, did great jobs with their role. Green in particular lent a natural believability to his role, even when the script itself was wooden.

Travis is an aspiring boxer with hopes of moving to Vegas as a professional. His best friend, Jacko, is a mildly psycho and hugely homophobic loser. The main thrust (ahem) of the film lies in how homophobia in the run-down, urban setting plays out in their lives.

Unfortunately, the plot has a couple of serious flaws. For example, it’s too small a movie spread over too long a time. In other words, the movie begs for tighter writing and editing. I’d almost argue the basic story is better suited to a short film: a shorter format would force the filmmaker to be clearer, more concise, and more focused on the central theme of the movie, without muddying it with subplots that don’t really go anywhere (such as Travis’ and Jacko’s family situations).

The most serious flaw is also the most crucial plot point: the idea that Travis, a boxer who specializes in a body-to-body move called the “Clinch,” habitually gets an erection during that move. I found it hard to believe. Outside of that single moment, Travis doesn’t read as gay. In fact, he seems pretty resolutely heterosexual, with no evidence of even internal conflict or uncertainty. About the gayest thing he does in the film is to refrain from joining his friend Jacko in gay bashing some poor soul. In fact, by the end of the movie, I was not questioning Travis’ sexuality as much as Jacko’s. Someone with that much to prove has something to hide.

Oh, and throw in a whole lot of clichés … the broken families, the girlfriend, the aging trainer with one last hope (Travis), the violent northside/southside rivalry, the local cop … yeah, call me underwhelmed.

I also scored the movie low on the Gay Positivity scale, though I have tried to think about this film a little more deeply. Is there a positive side I’m not seeing because I’m so upset about the gay negative stuff? Moreover, am I being overly reactive? That is, am I saying, “Omigod, they’re dissing gay people!” and get all angry, without realizing that’s the point of the film – to explore the issue of dissing gay people, what it means, how it works, why it exists?

On the positive side… Well, for one thing, the one and only clearly gay person portrayed is just a regular guy. Well, sort of. Insofar as regular guys happily duck into a dark and dirty alley in a bad part of town to give a blowjob to an unknown albeit cute boy.

Oh, and then he gets bashed so badly he ends up paralyzed. Maybe not so positive.

Still, the sheer amount of homophobia shown in the movie reflects poorly on the homophobic characters, an important component of off-setting the negativity of homophobia. And yet, the film never really demonizes the homophobia, per se. Rather, the homophobia ends up being part of the texture of the landscape, of the psychology of this particular micro-civilization. The group dynamics that act themselves out over the course of the film take place within a framework of homophobia, with significant plot points prompted by the egregious anti-gay attitude.

But the film never really explores that there’s a deeper underlying connection between homophobia and violence (I mean more than just the gay bashing violence), and it never clearly indicts homophobia as destructive on oneself, not just on others.

Yes, of course, the destructiveness of homophobia is shown in the film: the gay bashing, or how graffiti alleging a gay relationship prompts a vicious, violent triple assault. But is it clear how, say, Jacko’s own homophobia is destructive to himself, his own sense of self, his own healthy self-regard, to his personal experience and hopes for the future? I see it, but it’s an issue I’ve thought about. Would your average person watching this film make the mental leap? Given what’s in the film, probably not.

One Amazon.com review comments that the portrayal of gay characters in this movie is a refreshing change from “easily digestible, non-threatening image of gay men” such as the characters of “Will & Grace.” I disagree completely. Only one (minor) character is clearly gay, and he gets violently bashed. We may question Jacko’s or Travis’s sexuality, but the film presents no real evidence to say either is gay. So, instead, we have a film in which the sole gay, after flirting with Travis, is threatened and victimized. To be a refreshing change from a non-threatening gay like Will, we’d need a tough gay character who can stand up emotionally and physically to the homophobia and triumph in the end. I would love to see that character. But s/he is not found in this film.