4th Man Out

Maybe, the honesty is the lead virtue of this film about friendship, coming up , a small town, nice drops of humor and ordinary events. It is not a manifesto, it has not the desire to be a heartbreaking movie . But a simple, honest portrait of few characters and the connection between them. And , sure, the consequences of a not so comfortable words.

This film tells the story of a young man who works as a car mechanic in a blue collar town. He is gay but no one even suspects, hence people are shocked when he finally finds the courage to come out. Fortunately, his friends and family remain supportive of him.

The nice thing about "4th Man Out" is that it is real. The characters and their experiences are real life like. They are ordinary people who faces ordinary things. People can easily relate to the story. There are a lot of funny moments too, and they can also be related to be the viewers, such as Bradstar. I enjoyed watching this film a lot. It is very sweet.

Evan Todd gives a stellar performance, in this average movie, of just a normal work-a-day guy coming out to his friends. He's tired of living the lie so he spills the beans to his life long buddies and they learn to live with it. Each one has his own female 'relationship issues' so now their adult life bring a new relationship issue between themselves.

Director: Andrew Nackman & Writer: Aaron Dancik keep the gay issue lite because this shouldn't be an issue between friends that have been friends since childhood. There are funny moments as Adam (Evan Todd) tries to meet up with other guys. Some are just too weird for words. Nothing seems to go well and his friends want to help - but how?

4th Man Out is easy entertainment. A coming out flick that doesn't throw challenging scenes in the story. It's just about an average guy, who everyone seem to like, becoming himself.

Four best friends ... but one of them is different. Well everyone is different from the other guy, but one of them is ... homosexual. But no one knows, apart from himself of course. Cue a coming out, many funny weird situations and a lot of drama. The movie tries to keep it as real as possible. How would some react if they knew or a friend of theirs would come out? It does not take things lightly, though at times you could accuse the movie of taking in cliches a bit too far.

Having said that, it still is grounded in reality. If you are squeamish when it comes to sexual orientation, than obviously this is not for you. There is also male on male kissing. This is not about you enjoying that short moment and I'm just giving a heads up. Not judging nor critisizing nor anything else. Overall though this is really well made and whatever or however you may feel about certain small things should not matter (again I leave this up to you the viewer or not, to decide).

The piece this movie gets right is the straight friends' concern and compassion for their gay friend. This movie finds its heart when the straight friends start worrying that their gay friend is lonely. They realize that the key piece is that we're all lonely, and their gay friend is more susceptible to that loneliness. And they love him and try to protect him.