An average movie

To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this flick but since it was starring James Franco and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I have to admit that I don’t know much about the gay porn industry but it turned out to be actually a strong story and I believe it could have been a really awesome movie. Eventually, I did appreciate the rather neutral approach they chose showing that it is actually possible that many young men actually enjoy themselves and make tons of money this way but the danger of being exploited or abused is definitely present at every corner. The movie also interestingly displayed the duality of these men getting involved in some wild sex acts who, at the same time, stay in the shadow either because they're ashamed of being gay or ashamed of being involved in porn or both. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else was rather weak though. First of all, the directing was borderline amateurish. Indeed, they tried to mix up two tales taking place in the gay porn business but they really struggled to make this mix work and the back-and-forth between the two stories was awkward and felt rather jarring. Concerning the cast, even though James Franco was the main reason why I wanted to check this movie in the first place, I didn’t think he was really convincing though. Of course, his character was supposed to be obnoxious but it was unfortunately the only thing that this guy had to provide. As a result, he was seriously one-dimensional but that’s something that could be said about all the characters involved. Indeed, even if I thought that Garrett Clayton and Christian Slater were not bad at all, their characters really could or should have been more fleshed out as well. Eventually, with this material, they could have easily added at least 30 mins to develop more these 4 men. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was a really intriguing story and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.