Tres en raya

Alright, I gave this film no chance, watched it only because it was on and Joe Jackson did the score and knew I wouldn't even keep it on the whole time, but still... sometimes films I intend to dislike ("Signs" is one) turn out to be quite good. This one was not.

William Baldwin, Kelly Lynch and Sherilyn Fenn play three annoying city patrons whose lives intertwine in the fact that Kelly Lynch(the most irritating of them all), a lesbian, broke up with her girlfriend (Fenn) and wants her friend (Baldwin who appears totally bored) to pretend to love her ex so that somehow Ms. Fenn will come racing back to her. Or something like that.

Watching this movie is about as exciting as reading the phonebook. The lines are dull; I've already singled out Herr Baldwin, but all of the actors seem rather listless and lackluster; the lighting is annoying; and the score that I tuned into the dumb thing exclusively to hear is HARD to hear(but sounded good) because the sound quality was not too hot, either. Finally, I just gave up watching. What a waste it was.

In New York City, Ellen Armstrong (Sherilyn Fenn) needs some space from her girlfriend Connie Czapski (Kelly Lynch). A heart-broken Connie needs a date for a wedding. She hasn't come out to her old traditional Polish neighborhood or family. She decides to hire male escort Joe Casella (William Baldwin). He works for Mickey (Joe Pantoliano) who also runs a sex phone line. Connie comes up with a devious plan. Joe would break Ellen's heart so that she would come running back to Connie.

Joey Pants, Harvey, and the phone sex line are all trying to inject humor into the movie with limited success. If anything, I would cut out those parts. They don't have the same tone as the story with the main trio. They do generate the reason for Joe to move in with Connie which may not be a good thing since it muddied the waters of their budding friendship. The reason is still pretty thin and it doesn't make sense that Connie is so trusting of Joe so quickly.

Within it all, building their friendship is the heart of this movie. Instead, the filmmaker seems to be stuck with the male fantasy of turning lesbians. Well, Ellen seems to be bi at least. The movie is stuck with some of this more awkward aspects instead of nurturing its more heart-warming aspects. It takes a long arduous road but eventually it gets to the right place. This is a flawed indie and it's not that well made either.

Honestly you can watch this thing in fast forward and still understand the gist of the movie, because that's exactly what I did. I think all the actors did a decent job (I've seen Kelly Lynch in other things and she's great), but the plot was wretched and the characters were flimsy. Who acts like these people?

Here's a run down of the main characters: Connie: too over-the-top pathetic Ellen: Hot, but not interesting Joe: WTF!! The moral transformation- "bad boy turned good" was phony.

Actually the only great character was played by Joe Pantoliano. Maybe the movie should have been about him and not these confused and hard-up people.

Lesbian lover tries to win back the girl she loves and it's a male prostitute that will help accomplish this ?!

This movie portrays love being universal in a way it can go from lesbian (in)to hetero and that, whatever you are, the feelings of love and despair are equal.

That is exactly why I liked this movie. Not because there was much to laugh about or the value of "reality" or "morality".

Those three words are the only way I can describe this movie. This movie was supposed to be about lesbians? where was the kissing etc? Kelly Lynch is fabulous in the Showtime series "The L Word" as Ivan so I expected to see her playing a believable lesbian. This was not the case with this character. The Baldwin brother had a look on his face the whole movie like he was half asleep. The script was predictable and anticlimactic. Soundtrack was okay (thanks Joe Jackson). If you have insomnia, watch this, you'll fall asleep. I tried to give this movie a chance, almost turned it off after 50 min, but I stuck it out hoping it would get better. It didn't. Don't waste your time on this flop.