Testosterone
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Movie Reviews of Testosterone
Movie Review: HOT AND FUNNY DAVID SUTCLIFFE
Summary: 4 Stars
DAVID SUTCLIFFE WAS THE SAVING GRACE OF THIS MOVIE. ACTUALLY ALL THE ACTORS WERE GOOD, BUT DAVID SHONE. HE WAS WRYLY FUNNY AND EXTREMELY HANDSOME. FORGET ANTONIO SABATO, JR., DAVID SUTCLIFFE HAS THAT APPROACHABLE LOOK AND SINCERITY THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IN HIM. GREAT PLOT AND LOCATION SHOOTING. YOU COULD TELL THIS MOVIE HAD MUCH HIGHER PRODUCTION VALUES THAN MOST GAY MOVIES. THE EXTRAS WERE FUN TOO. JUST SIT BACK AND RELAX WITH THIS ENJOYABLE CAPER......Movie Review: Fun, complicated, and not a little bizarre
Summary: 4 Stars
An upper-class South American hunk cruelly and without explanation abandons his devoted Yankee lover, who immediately launches himself upon a dangerous adventure to recover his prize.
A complicated, nuanced, sexy tale of obsession, betrayal, and family values. Recommended!
The moral of this story may very well be that in the end, two heads are better than one.
Movie Review: Funny and hot
Summary: 4 Stars
if you don't want the end given away, don't high-light the following couple of lines:
<font color="white">he didn't really commit suicide... didn't you see the end???</font>
I thought this movie was engaging, hot, and really funny. Marcos and the bellboy were the hottest in the book. Boo for drug use, but horray for hot naked men.
Movie Review: What have they done to one of my favourite books?
Summary: 3 Stars
Author Robert James Baker would probably be turning in his grave if he saw this ratchety, psuedo-noir film version of his famously hedonistic novel Testosterone. Why the producers felt the need to move the story from the sun-drenched, furnace-like Los Angeles to Buenos Aries remains a big mystery. One of the most wonderful attributes of the original story was that is was indelibly "Southern Californian," and Dean Seagrave, the drug-fuelled, sex-crazed main protagonist, was a genuine reflection of the pleasure seeking and self indulgence of the LA gay scene in the 1980's.
Consequently, changing the locale has dissolved much of the original impact of the book, so now we have a film that, while dark and somber in tone, fails to match the frenetic energy, tension, and vibrancy that made the original book so affecting. The producers have turned the story into a type of quasi, half-baked black comedy, a soapy, trite melodrama where the original tale of obsession, sadistic passion and sexual fixation has become almost insensible and unrecognizable.
Gone is the famous L.A. bathhouse scenes and the over-the-top gun violence of the book. Instead, the story has the self-absorbed, neurotic, graphic novelist Dean (David Sutcliffe) flying all the way to Argentina to try and win back his one true love, the playboy Pablo (Antonio Sabato Jr. - who is better when he doesn't speak). The film opens with a series of strangely out-of-place comic book panels showing the back-story of the Los Angeles romance between Dean and Pablo. They're two butch, hairy, abs-of-steel boys whose affair comes to an end when Pablo goes out for a pack of cigarettes and never returns.
After confronting Pablo's wealthy mother (a delectably nasty Sonia Braga) at an exhibition opening, Dean spends the rest of the movie searching for his ex, and tracking him to Argentina, where there's all manner of contrived weirdness, hotel room shenanigans, and aimless street wondering. Right away, Dean meets up with Pablo's insane ex-lovers, including a deceptively innocent young girl, whom Dean later finds out is actually betrothed to Pablo.
As Dean becomes more and more obsessed with finding Pablo, Pablo's mother becomes more adamant that Dean must stay out of his son's life. And with a personality that gravitates between neurotically needy and arrogantly snippy, Dean finds solace and tries to exorcise his inner demons by phoning his boss back in L.A. (played with by Jennifer Coolridge, who provides some of the best laughs in the film).
There's some sexy male-on-male action, but generally Testosterone is a genre-scrambling, illogical, unmitigated mess. And you know there's a real problem with the movie when, in one scene, Dean, who is supposed to be a hunky, gay beefcake stud looks more passionate and convincing when he's kissing a woman rather than a man. While David Sutcliffe is incredibly sexy, and plays the part with all the panache and charisma he can muster, the director David Moreton and co-writer Dennis Hensley should have been warned not to cast a straight actor in a gay role. Unfortunately, they have done the book a serious disservice. Mike Leonard November 04.
Movie Review: Intriguing film that could have been a bit better
Summary: 3 Stars
Testosterone was a hot topic film for one reason: Antonio Sabato Jr. exposes himself full frontal. It is not the reason that you should watch this film.
Dean (David Sutcliffe) and Pablo (Antonio Sabato Jr.) are lovers as the film begins. Pablo disappears and Dean is beside himself. He doesn't know where Pablo is. He goes to Argentina where he suspects Pablo has gone. This should all be quite intriguing and largely it is. However, just why he thinks Pablo is there is not explained.
Why he is so determined to get Pablo back is never explained (the oh-so-ever-lightly-touched-upon-answer is that Pablo was Dean's muse for his art, but that is never really spelled out well enough). From the cut away shots that we see, it is not apparent that they were deeply devoted and in love - it is alluded to that they were hot lovers, but that is all.
Why does Dean know Pablo's mother so well, and yet she completely refuses to circumvent the actions that take place in this film by merely speaking to Dean?
Why did Pablo actually go back to Argentina? (it is alluded that he did so because his family is powerful, but we don't see evidence of this being the reason) Later Pablo weds Sofia for what we are told is a marriage of convenience. Is he expected to take over the family business and thus cannot do so unless he is "straight" or married? What's up?
Pablo is apparently from a powerful enough family that he orders Dean to be killed. Or did he?
The ending of the film provides us with a possible resolution to the whole film that is somewhat satisfying, but it is only in watching the DVD extras that we get the true satisfaction of realizing that we are correct in our assumption (and sadly it is as a result of a bit of poorly done humor that was wisely excised from the final cut of the film).
The film is long on mood and is really quite intriguing in that it keeps you guessing and wondering what is to come next, even if it is more of the same. I like a film where I am not sure of the motivations of the characters. It's fun to be kept guessing. However, after all the guessing games, I want a laid out solution. This film gives you a final answer, but it leaves you wondering why about so many other things that it isn't quite satifying.
The acting is fine and the setting, and script are really good too. This feels like a studio picture and not an independent film. I've seen studio pictures that were far far worse. This is not a bad film. I do recommend it, however, if you can figure out why Pablo is so cagey - please email me and tell me.