Straight No Chaser (2003)

Director:

Barry Alexander Brown

Writer:

Dan Harnden (co-creator)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

When Josh Peters inherits a wildly sucessful gay bar from his uncle he decides to become a closeted hetersexual (at least at work) in order to keep the place popular. |

Plot Keywords:

Gay Bar | Gay Interest | Man Pretending To Be Gay | Unaired TV Series Pilot

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Alberto Bonilla	...	Trini
Antares Davis	...	Sarah
Sonita Henry	...	Sydney
Bronson Pinchot	...	Josh Peters
Gregg Weiner	...	Neil

Runtime:

USA:16 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Funny but uneven

This is an odd mish-mash of a film. Written by Bronson Pinchot and two others, this film follows the adventures of a comically wild straight man (played by Pinchot) who thinks he has inherited a beauty salon from his uncle. The "Beauty Bar" turns out to be a fantastically profitable gay bar with a hunk of a manager, porn star bartenders, a leather-queen doorman, flirtatious clientèle with musclebound and jealous lovers, an attitude-throwing Latino bar back and a fortune teller.

The lines, jokes and incidents are very funny. Or, they would be if the delivery were a bit clearer and less rushed. The film attempts a rapid-fire delivery of lines. But the actors are, for the most part, not up to the task and many of the jokes get lost in incomprehensibility. Too, many of the jokes tumble over one another, never giving the audience time to stop laughing at the previous joke. Three, four, five jokes go by as the audience is still reacting to the first one.

Many of the jokes (both visual and oral) are predicated on a sort of homo-panic as Pinchot is tossed (sometimes literally) from one outrageous queen to the next. For a gay-positive film, homo-panic is a little off-putting.

The film never quite really gets its feet underneath it, and then -- boom! -- the film slows down as Pinchot talks to the more sedate (relatively) bar manager. Pinchot dreams of turning the bar into a restaurant or lounge, but is dissuaded by the large amounts of cash flowing through the place. But if the patrons ever found out their new proprietor was straight, the bar would fail. So, in yet another change of pace for the film, the bar manager and Trini (the flamboyant Latino bar back) must teach him how to "act gay."

The film ends on a predictable, if funny and jerky, point.

Overall, it's funny and visually exciting. But there's something lacking here, a point of reference or a character to hold on to which the audience can empathize with.