The Velocity of Gary

I previewed this movie a while back and I think one reason why I really wanted to see this is because I saw it in the video store and thought I might want to see it. I previewed it and I just wasn't amused at all by this film! I thought maybe because Salma Hayek was in it, it would be somewhat decent but I was brutally wrong. Vincent D'Onofrio and Thomas Jane couldn't even handle this movie on their own. The only amusing character in the whole film was the Patsy Cline drag queen and he was deaf and hardly had any lines. Thomas Jane's character looked like he didn't give a rat's ass about anybody except Valentino (D'Onofrio's character). I think the movie is a waste of a lot of people's time when they could clearly be hitting the town but instead being put to sleep!

It's painful to watch competent actors slumming in this movie. You know they are reaching for something "cool" and knowing, when what they ultimately grab at is something infantile and delusional. This is probably the writer James Still's point: that these people need to look death in the face and grow up. But it's such a mundane point.

If death is all around you, if the people you know are dropping like flies, and you figure the remedy is to get along with the people who are left (because they may be gone tomorrow) and have children of your own (so you feel death has not defeated you), why stay among people whose habits issue in death? Why impose the specter of sexual caution and responsibility, when what makes the people in this movie who they are flies in the face of this appeal? I don't think the main characters Valentino, Mary Carmen, and Gary form a bisexual triangle, because they want to lead wary, conventional lives. The thought presented here that bisexuality can be the common ground on which homosexuals and heterosexuals can come together is sly pontificating, and when you consider the way the camera languishes over the liplock Vincent D'Onofrio is made to plant on Thomas Jane, you get the feeling that the heterosexual side is taking a back seat to the flip side of the triangle.

This really seems like Gary's story anyway; Selma Hayek is trying much too hard to garner some respect and dignity for Mary Carmen for it to be hers. Director Dan Ireland should have pulled her in more; it might have done wonders for her big moment, when she lip-syncs to Diana Ross' "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." It's supposed to suggest the strength of her attachment to her lover, but Hayek hasn't been asked to play it deeply. She declaims everything, so what she emotes spreads out too thinly.

It's Thomas Jane's reticence that convinces us of whom the story favors. When his body surrenders to Valentino on the dance floor, or his eyes roll back with Valentino's teeth in his neck, or he broods quietly when Valentino and Mary Carmen are sharing intimacies, the sexual undercurrent he creates pulls you under with great impetus. This must be what Still means by Gary's velocity. At least that is what I figure. But if I happen to be wrong, what in blazes does that pretentious title mean?

I just watched the movie. And I can't understand the bad critics, because it is a sweet and interesting movie. The Actors doing a pretty good job. Especially Thomas Jane. He was part of the reason why I rented it in the first place. His performance was stunning.

This is without a doubt the worst, I say worst, movie I have ever seen. What a waste of talent, what a lack of plot. I cannot say enough bad about it. I invited gay friends to see it and two out of three had fallen asleep before it was into a half an hour. They left and I watched it in agony until the bitter end. I am sure Hayek does not want to be reminded of it. I am gay and wanted to see something gay and interesting. This does not even begin to fit that bill. Don't, I repeat, don't even think of watching it. The illness which Valentino has is never quite explained. One would think it was AIDS but it looked more like TB. The changing of scenes is terribly confusing. The main character is so out of his element with D'Onofrio and Hayek.

"THE VELOCITY OF GARY" starts out promising and quite cinematic with hunky Thomas Jane as daylight cowboy Gary (not his real name) showering in one of New York's open hydrants. Montage of Gary (n.h.r.n) in every cinematographer's NY tribute from Bowery to Brooklyn, which makes Gary (nhrn) one busy cruiser.

Next up, Gary (nhrn) reluctantly comes to the aid of a young drag queen whose straight off the bus from one of the square states (swinging her suitcase and grinning as if she's just landed in the Greenwich Village of the musical "Wonderful Town" not the real-life scaresville of today) and is promptly set upon by gay bashers. Suffice it to say, the kid learns that interesting people do indeed live on Christopher Street.

Unfortunately, this collection of downtown losers is of far more interest to themselves than us. Under-developed and preening constantly, they speak in bad poetic jargon (the film's stage roots showing terribly) and manage to grate on our nerves in a New York minute. Selma Hayek (real name) and Jane (real name) are both oddly drawn to super-loser bisexual idiot played by Vincent D'Onofrio (who should change his name after helping produce this mess). All need a haircut in the worst way, making their adventure look like a 60's flashback when it's anything but. Everything goes downhill after the first flash forward and never recovers.

"The Velocity of Gary" is lacks both velocity and veracity. You're better off not having known their real names.