The M.O. Of M.I.

Clever title (aka "The Modus Operandi of Male Intimacy") actually has very little to do with this woeful, overly-ambitious script about a gay hustler (into drugs and blackmail, and involved with gangster types) who appears to come between a gay male couple who can't get through an evening together without arguing. Grafting a pseudo-twisty underworld plot onto a gay scenario (or is that the other way around?) probably sounded like a good idea to writer-director SL (aka Susan) Turley, but it's a bad match. Turley has the germ of a good idea in at least one instance, but she can't seem to get her ambitions onto the high-wire where they need to work (she eventually does go over-the-top, but it's too late). Homosexual dramas involving bickering boyfriends usually exhaust straight viewers (and here, the petty jealousies and immature squabbling are not modulated for a wide audience). Most gay audiences may only want some hotter action--this one coyly cuts away as soon as the clothes get stripped off. The performances are amateurish, yet they do work fleetingly; however, these actors just aren't directed right, and all the men are in need of refining their tics for the camera (they are immediately off-putting). The low-budget film was advertised as a sexy, bare-chested thriller, but director Turley never gets heated up; she's too involved in her formula (which is clichéd anyway) and lets her cast evaporate into the genre shtick. * from ****