Bros

This romcom about two forty-something gay men trying to decide whether or not they want to have a relationship has some funny moments and it goes down pretty easily over all. But I'm not sure it has enough funny moments to make up for Billy Eichner's obnoxious performance. His character is so strident, so angry, and so condescending that it's a real turn off to spend two hours with him. I didn't really care whether he found someone to love him, because I couldn't blame anyone for wanting to stay far away from him. I know as an openly out actor he has a great deal of passion for bringing gay stories into the mainstream, and I support that. And he does get one soliloquy in the movie that brilliantly makes people understand what it was like to grow up gay during a time when gays were marginalized at best and actually persecuted at worst. But no one wants to be talked at and lectured to for two hours, and that's what this movie feels like.

The highlight of the movie is a hilarious cameo by Debra Messing.

Grade: B.

Billy is no Julia Roberts in "My best friend's wedding". He can't pull off being neurotic yet charming. I struggled during the first 45 minutes wondering if I should turn my TV off or carry on. You only have to see the first five minutes to understand why Luke McFarland's character would ask him to tone it down during a family meeting (with relatives that look nothing like each other). You just can't root for this very annoying leading man, who is skeptical but chooses a restaurant with live dance and songs as a good spot for a family outing. The gag is the music during awkward moments. Funny!

For a movie that keeps making fun of Hallmark movies, they really needed to be more self-aware.

The editing is also really bad. It looks like a Netflix reality where it's painfully obvious that close-ups were part of a different take.

It seems like they came up with sketches or gags first and then they wondered how they could put them all together through a needlessly long story. Most of the artists are overacting as if that would make this funnier.

Luke is decent enough in his performance, but he has been better in other things.

Your enjoyment of this film will very likely hinge on how long you can tolerate Billy Eichner and his shtick. He is almost unbearable at the onset of the film, and while he gets better as it progresses, he can still be difficult to root for. Bros also tries its hardest to push its way out from the rest of the pack, but falls back on lots of genre conventions.

There are some genuinely clever bits strewn throughout and I found myself actually amused more than I expected. The film can be pretty in your face at times, largely due to Eichner and his towering personality, however Bros shines when it showcases its two leads' chemistry and rapport.

Oy vey, Bobby sure kvetches, pisses and moans endlessly throughout this movie, doesn't he? How can a nice guy like Aaron hook up with such a scold and malcontent? He must have the patience of a saint. But we the viewers are not.

We found a lot of laughs in BROS, and while it was great to see Harvey Fierstein and Debra Messing in the mix, it was, unfortunately, all tempered by Bobby's unpleasantness (he reminded us of an ex-friend who was too much of a pill to be around), and we wanted to bop him over the head with a rock-hard, week-old challah! I sure hope Billy Eichner isn't like this in real life!

Ever since I knew I was gay, I've always been on the lookout for people of a similar nature, as humans naturally do. "Gay" people in film/tv have often been heavily stereotyped. EG the effeminate gay best friend, or the badass butch lesbian who is just one of the boys.

While bros does try a little bit harder to break through the stereotyped glass ceiling, it still falls into that category of trying so hard to be gay that it feels unrelatable to most gay people, and no doubt straight people as well.

It's not a bad movie and is quite entertaining, and is worth the watch for those elements. But a core idea of this movie is the normalisation of sexuality with society, which is something it fails to do.

Normalisation occurs when we have love stories between peole who happen to be gay, like Brokeback Mountain. A character's sexuality should not be the driving force behind the movie; the characters should be interesting in themselves in a variety of ways.