Los agitadores

The first temptation is to see it as a kind of Taekwondo II. And to appreciate more the first part.

Many guys, nude , talking, wasting time, gay, hetero, looking for love or define their sexual identity, girls, a lot of photos and a beautiful house.

Some homoerotism.

Real good looking guys.

And a very - very-very gentle suggested story if you have not impression of self illusion.

I can not be very critic about this film but its basic virtue is to send the thoughts to Taekwondo , working just as precious kick to see that , again.

Is it enough ?

I suppose so. I appreciate Marco Berger job and I respect his perspective about a theme who seems very closed by him. Cinema represents experiments and Los agitatores is one of them.

Seen at BFI Flare in London (wonderful festival!)

Quite a let down. Inevitable comparisons to Taekwondo, but whereas that film succeeded because of the development of the characters and the building of tension between them, this failed. The narrative is s-l-o-w, yet (with one exception) the relationships between the characters aren't properly explored, even though there is plenty of time for that.

The ending is unexpected, but lacks impact because the audience doesn't feel anything for the characters involved.

Sure the.guys are hot, and the photography lovely - with those slow drawing shots on male bodies. But the whole film felt like it had been created from pieces off Taekwondo's cutting floor.

I thought of Marco Berger in quite a positive light after seeing two of his films, The Blonde One (2019), and Hawaii (2013). Both were excellent. Both were mature works, and visually interesting, with very engaging plot lines.

Having since watched The Carnival (2021), Young Hunter (2020), Taekwondo (2016), and this film, I've pretty much changed my mind about this director.

I thought Taekwondo was extremely slow moving and boring, with little to no discernible plot. Horseplay follows in the footsteps of Taekwondo, but with a bit more sexy visual confection (which is really the only reason I even assigned it the extra star.). There are definitely some sexy guys, and sexy scenes. But it doesn't offer much more.

Okay, actually, the vacation house where all this horseplay takes place is pretty to look at too.

But the movie seems to go on and on, magically making 1 hour 40 minutes seem like about 6 hours. The dialog is vapid, and repetitive.

It's filled with testosterone, but has virtually no substance.

There might almost be a couple of plots hidden in this film, but they're so well hidden that they cannot be seen. When you think there might be a story line starting to materialize, it invariably turns out to be a red herring that goes nowhere. A quiet gay man amongst a group of rambunctious young friends who constantly insult each other by calling each other "homo," while taking endless pictures of themselves engaging in gay sex (horseplay, I guess)? The sexual violation of a girl visiting the house, against her will, by one of the guys? Nope. The leaking of an embarrassing "homo" image of one of the guys whose wife sees it and worries her family will be defamed on social media? Those didn't go anywhere.

There is one searing moment at the end of the film that might hint at a story line. But hey, everyone's gone home, and the credits are rolling.

If all you're looking for are some glimpses of young guys at their sexual summit, you might enjoy this. But even there, there's just so much boredom in between that it's not really worth it.

How is this not "Taekwondo" all over again? Marco Berger's gay male gaze is still here, not as facefront as it is in "Taekwondo", but there's still plenty of that in here. Something that's not very prominent in here is his usual slow-burn sense of longing. There are some characters that struggle throughout the movie but their struggles are various, not only same-sex attraction. Or are they? I enjoyed watching this, I love everything Berger does, he owns me, but for me it's one of his weaker films. "Horseplay" is what straight dudes do to fool around and it's not that exciting of a movie. Marco Berger still needs to make more movies.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen. There is zero plot. The characters aren't believable and frankly it's just boring from beginning to end. It could have been so much better if the perspective of Poli and his (maybe unrequited) relationship with his friend had been explored. Instead Poli is mostly mute and we get no sense of how he thinks about himself and his sexuality in this setting and friend group.

The dialogue is extremely repetitive and not credible. Almost half the movie is just the characters calling each other 'homo'. I think even homophobes would get bored of this chat pretty quickly.

I really don't understand why this is being considered a queer movie. It's a movie about straight men. It's not even homoerotic, the nudity is sterile and not sexy. Much of it is actually disgusting (one character vomiting on another in a shower). I found it to be deeply unsexy. Ultimately it's a movie about a group of unpleasant straight men with one closeted character who barely speaks.

Do yourself a favour and avoid this.