Deleted Scenes

Although I would be delighted never to see Todd Verow naked ever, ever, EVER again, it's not too hard to look the other way during the few minutes scattered through the movie when he forces his weirdly, selectively shaved body in our faces. (In his defense, I think - and I certainly hope, for his sake - that his character was SUPPOSED to be a creep.) Otherwise, I enjoyed this movie. It's a lot less strange than its descriptions make it out to be - and than I think Verow may have meant it to be.

Ostensibly, this is an almost random collection of scenes deleted from an unfinished movie about a dysfunctional gay relationship, but that conceit falls by the wayside almost immediately. It turns out to be a fitful but ultimately quite touching and well-developed love story between a big, strong, warm-hearted, salt-of-the-earth (and successful) Slavic hustler named Wolf and his very cute and sweet but very neurotic and fragile drug-addict boyfriend Sean, both New Yorkers in their mid-thirties. Both Ivica Kovacevic (Wolf) and Michael Vaccaro (Sean) are extraordinarily, surprisingly good in what must have been fairly difficult roles.

A couple of side stories appear out of nowhere late in the movie - one about a hustler named Fast Eddie and the other about an old alcoholic queen named Clement and his clown-haired female crony Ashley - which some other reviewers complain about because they seem irrelevant to the Wolf-Sean story, but I appreciated both of them. I was especially grateful to Fast Eddie for what he did before he went on the lam, and Clement and Ashley provide a little comic relief in an otherwise pretty intense movie.

The abundant sex scenes are soft-core ONLY in that they show no penetration, but they're so realistic that it's easy to imagine that THOSE were the real deleted scenes. The hustler sex is appropriately mechanical and boring (and creepy when Verow is the john), but the sex between the two lovers is romantic and passionate and even lovely, really a joy to watch. But prudes and Puritans? don't trouble yourselves with this movie: you will NOT be happy in this audience, except to whatever extent you get your kicks by being outraged.