REVIEW Blackmail Boys (2011) / Extortion Gone Awry
MOVIE REVIEW
Blackmail Boys (2011)
Harry ShumanskiTaylor Reed, Nathan Adloff and Joe Swanberg in “Blackmail Boys.”Extortion Gone Awry
By ANDY WEBSTER
More About This Movie“Blackmail Boys” is basically about just that: a young gay couple and their ill-fated attempt to coerce a famous figure into paying them to keep his gay identity from view. Sam (Nathan Adloff), a part-time student in Chicago, has been turning tricks to make ends meet, but what he really wants is enough money to marry and go on a honeymoon with his live-in boyfriend, Aaron (Taylor Reed).
They take aim at Andrew (the prolific mumblecore actor and director Joe Swanberg), one of Sam’s rougher and more mean-spirited clients, a married Christian celebrity author publicly hell-bent on preventing gay teenagers from embracing their sexual orientation.“Essentially he’s against everything that we are,” Aaron says, “except not really, which makes him a hypocrite.” Their awkwardly executed plan goes brutally awry.But “Blackmail Boys” is about more than extortion. Distributed by TLA Releasing — the outfit behind a passel of recent gay-theme movies (“Fruit Fly,” “BearCity”) — it’s also about double lives, the violence that can lurk inside those who cannot face themselves and the laudable quest for gay marriage in the United States.Unfortunately, it is also, tiresomely, about skin, lots of it. Much of the film is one sexual interlude after another (full frontal, yes; pornographic detail, pretty close). Many straight viewers (gay ones, too) may roll their eyes. And yet the directors, Bernard and Richard Shumanski (pseudonyms), and their talented cinematographer, Adam Wingard, show remarkable technical facility with the barest of means. What a shame the Shumanskis won’t sign their real names to the film. You’d almost think they were as afraid as Andrew.BLACKMAIL BOYSOpens on Friday in Brooklyn.Written and directed by Bernard and Richard Shumanski; director of photography, Adam Wingard; produced by Harry Shumanski, Lexksus Furarie and Nick Canseco. At the reRun Gastropub Theater, 147 Front Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn. Running time: 1 hour 8 minutes. This film is not rated.WITH: Joe Swanberg (Andrew Kenneth Tucker), Nathan Adloff (Sam) and Taylor Reed (Aaron)
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WITH: Joe Swanberg (Andrew Kenneth Tucker), Nathan Adloff (Sam) and Taylor Reed (Aaron)
Blackmail Boys (2011)
Harry Shumanski
Taylor Reed, Nathan Adloff and Joe Swanberg in “Blackmail Boys.”
More About This Movie“Blackmail Boys” is basically about just that: a young gay couple and their ill-fated attempt to coerce a famous figure into paying them to keep his gay identity from view. Sam (Nathan Adloff), a part-time student in Chicago, has been turning tricks to make ends meet, but what he really wants is enough money to marry and go on a honeymoon with his live-in boyfriend, Aaron (Taylor Reed).
They take aim at Andrew (the prolific mumblecore actor and director Joe Swanberg), one of Sam’s rougher and more mean-spirited clients, a married Christian celebrity author publicly hell-bent on preventing gay teenagers from embracing their sexual orientation.
“Essentially he’s against everything that we are,” Aaron says, “except not really, which makes him a hypocrite.” Their awkwardly executed plan goes brutally awry.
But “Blackmail Boys” is about more than extortion. Distributed by TLA Releasing — the outfit behind a passel of recent gay-theme movies (“Fruit Fly,” “BearCity”) — it’s also about double lives, the violence that can lurk inside those who cannot face themselves and the laudable quest for gay marriage in the United States.
Unfortunately, it is also, tiresomely, about skin, lots of it. Much of the film is one sexual interlude after another (full frontal, yes; pornographic detail, pretty close). Many straight viewers (gay ones, too) may roll their eyes. And yet the directors, Bernard and Richard Shumanski (pseudonyms), and their talented cinematographer, Adam Wingard, show remarkable technical facility with the barest of means. What a shame the Shumanskis won’t sign their real names to the film. You’d almost think they were as afraid as Andrew.
BLACKMAIL BOYS
Opens on Friday in Brooklyn.
Written and directed by Bernard and Richard Shumanski; director of photography, Adam Wingard; produced by Harry Shumanski, Lexksus Furarie and Nick Canseco. At the reRun Gastropub Theater, 147 Front Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn. Running time: 1 hour 8 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Joe Swanberg (Andrew Kenneth Tucker), Nathan Adloff (Sam) and Taylor Reed (Aaron)
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WITH: Joe Swanberg (Andrew Kenneth Tucker), Nathan Adloff (Sam) and Taylor Reed (Aaron)
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WITH: Joe Swanberg (Andrew Kenneth Tucker), Nathan Adloff (Sam) and Taylor Reed (Aaron)
NYTimes
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