Bad Boy Street

It's so difficult to find positive gay romances between an older guy and younger guy. I've seen too many gay movies that show these kinds of love affairs in a negative light. This was a really sweet story that featured this genre in a delightful and romantic way.

Gay love story set in Paris. Story rather far fetched. Gay French guy picks up an American closeted, movie star, who has fallen down drunk in an alley near his Paris apartment. The French guy doesn't know who the American is and doesn't find out until much later. The two end up having passionate sex; falling for each other, but the ending doesn't make it clear what happens to their relationship. Movie focuses much time on the relationship between the Frenchman and his closest female friend, who lives in the same building. This could have been a very romantic and emotional movie, but the focus is wrong. The storyline is not believable and it's weakly executed. The actor playing the American had an accent that was not American. So not convincing there.

The film opens with various scenes in a nightclub, with the house music cranking. In the following shot, we see one guy waking up a hottie sleeping in the street, and helping get him into bed to sleep it off. Eight minutes goes by before a word is spoken in our film. And then, it's fourteen minutes into the movie before we (and they) find out each other's name. All very mysterious, but sweet. Yann de Monterno is "Claude", a few years older than "Brad", ( Kevin Miranda ), who he brought in from the street. They have breakfast, and promise to meet up for dinner. In pops Catherine, the upstairs neighbor and best friend, who even prepares the dinner for Claude to serve to Brad; i wish I had a neighbor who would do that for me! Then things start to go haywire. Things happen. Good things. Bad things. Misunderstandings. The one flaw in the script here is the inclusion of the writer himself in the story. Claude is asked to do something 59 minutes into the story ( which I would have refused to do ), and that scene really took away from the movie for me. Verow was totally believable in the scene; i just felt the scene didn't belong in the film, as if it were added in later. They could have accomplished the same result, in so many better ways, without that three or four minutes of footage. Aside from that, excellent film. I love the friendship between Catherine and Claude... you can really feel the warmth and caring they have for each other.

Written, directed, and even acted by Todd Verow, who seems to be a very prolific writer, director, actor. I'd like to see more of his films if they are available on DVD. The film quality, lighting, sound, and editing are professional-grade, much better than your typical indie film.

This film has a certain innocence that one just doesn't see in films these days. I'm really not sure why or even exactly how to define it, but watching this film make me feel like a kid on the verge of life's discovery. Giddy and excited, pure as the driven snow too. And I think that says pretty much not just how this film affected me but how it was written as though we lived in a new age of innocence in which everyone was untainted with sin. This probably has a lot to do with the individual who made this film and his view of the world, that we are innocent and live in innocence until proved guilty. Happily there is no guilt in this movie - it is all innocent joy, filled with a light hearted zest that makes your head swim. If more films were like this it would be a much better world and who knows perhaps this film is the beginning of a new wave of film that celebrates life rather than denigrates it.

As you can see, I rated this film 9 out of 10, and I would have been happy to rate it a 10 had it not been for two peculiarities. 1. The soundtrack is awful. If only there were some way to tune it out! Deaf people will enjoy this movie much more than their hearing-enabled friends. 2. One of the two main characters is "American". Speaking English in Paris makes clear that he is NOT American. His wiki explains that he's Portuguese. No matter, you'll just never believe his accent is American.

The movie is great! What begins as picking up a guy who has passed out in the gutter becomes oh so much more! The Frenchness of the film defies all our American stereotypes. The pacing is slow and cerebral, and the film unravels at something approaching the speed of real life.

I won't give away the ending, but let's just say it's pretty courageous.