Hard

Here's the cold, hard truth about John Hukert's "Hard": it is arguably the best film featuring a Gay lead character, and may very well be the only the film that features a Gay hero who also happens to be Hispanic. In my book, the lead, Ramon Vates, played by Noel Palomaria, is an instant icon for those Gay Hispanic men looking for visibility on the silver screen.

The story is simple: Ramon Vates, a rising star in the Los Angeles police department, is promoted to detective. His first assignment: to catch a psychopathic pedophile who serially kills young, Gay Caucasian male prostitutes. Vates, played effectively by Noel Palomaria, is himself Gay but desperately trying to keep his professional and personal life apart; it is a struggle he continually loses.

Vates' antagonist, Jack, wonderfully fleshed out by Malcolm Moorman, is the serial killer who is completely devoid of sympathy and single minded in his goal to kill and/or maim anyone and everyone who he comes into contact with regardless of their age or sex.

Hukert's directing may be a freshman outing, but it's a good one. I thought that Noel Palomaria had the more difficult job of trying to play a man disoriented by his burgeoning sexual identity which he continually tries to distance and keep from overwhelming him. Moorman's job as an actor was simple: No one is safe.

I also believe that Huckert's treatment of the actors translated well into the actor's treatment of the characters, respectful without being judgmental. I came away from the film feeling contented that sexual identity was not explained with casual, campy humor and bland caricatures.

Noel Palomaria and Malcom Moorman, visually, are an interesting pair to watch. Palomaria imbues his character's eyes with surprising adolescent earnestness; Moorman engenders his character's eyes and facial features with relentless malice: he was born to deceive as much as the other was born to be truthful. Their first meeting is fraught with palpable tension.

If Huckert's casting was accidental, it was an incredible stroke of luck; if it was planned, his tactic and strategy deserves much admiration.

Ultimately, however, if there is any fault that this piece has to bear it is probably lighting and cinematography. For some reason, in my mind I thought that the cinematographer and lighting could have worked better together. For some reason, I got the feeling as though there was a struggle between the camps--much in the same way that Palomaria's and Moorman's characters struggle with one another. That struggle is a distraction and the only reason that I did not rate the movie greater than the 9 stars I have assigned it.

Finally, Hukert's "Hard" attempts to undo the damage that William Friedkin wrought with his film, "Cruising", that suggested, minimally, that if you're Gay, there's already something wrong with you; a Gay man, pursuant to Friedkin's film, is sexually insatiable and deviant; he cannot be anything else but flawed.

Huckert's outing attempts and successfully draws the line between being Gay and being a sexual predator.

Moorman's Jack is a pedophile, a sick and twisted version of a man, homosexual sex for him is a by-product of his madness and offers no love.

Sex for Jack is an extension of his madness, and that extension, in every scene, is an exertion of power before he devours them. Only Palomaria's Vates manages to navigate Jack's abyss and avoid complete submersion.

My recommendation is that if you can find "Hard", watch it and watch it again. There is more than meets the eye upon secondary viewing, and my only wish is that "Hard" be shown to a much wider audience than the typical film festival circuit to give this important film the attention it deserves.

I recently rented a DVD version of "Hard". There were some extras, most notably two commentary tracks and some Q&A sessions at gay film festivals. For me the most interesting part of the whole experience was listening to the ex-police advisors discuss the problems they had when their departments found out the advisors were gay. Examples from these experiences (harassment, beatings, no back-up, etc.) were on display in the film. If you rent the DVD, be sure to check out the extras.

The film-makers make the statement that they wanted to show how the police disregard low prestige victims (e.g., hustlers), how the police make life a misery for gay cops, how serial killers really behave, and depict the plight of street people in general. Well, hustlers and others just show up in time to be victims and then are turned to bloody messes. So the focus is really on police behavior and on the killer.

Several scenes, especially the torture and darkened interior scenes, are lit and photographed well. The victims all come across with some personality. The bad guy was the most effective actor. The rest of the adult actors were just OK. Pacing was all right. The protagonist is a closeted gay man who has just been promoted to detective; he has to learn some things the hard way.

Your liking of the movie will depend some on your own fantasies. The police environment and issues raised are useful for everybody to consider.

Newly-minted detective Raymond (aka "Ramon") Vates (Noel Palomaria) is walking a fine line between two worlds. A rookie promoted from the streets when another detective is caught 'in flagrante delicto' with a dead hooker (and is equally as dead as she is, by the way), Vates must learn to live and work with the jaded, nihilistic, testosterone-laden meatheads who are his colleagues, while he conceals his biggest secret: he himself is gay.

He somehow manages to walk with one foot in both worlds, until a series of murders he is investigating with his new partner, Det. Tom 'Lucky' Ellis, (Charles Lanyer), brings his entire world crashing down. He's taunted, enraged, aroused and entranced by an alleged witness named Jack (the disturbingly good Malcolm Moorman), whom he picks up in a bar for a night of wildly passionate sex. When he wakes up, though, he discovers that Jack isn't merely the "screw-and-run" type. No, more like "screw-run-and-kill". Because he reveals himself to a handcuffed Vates to be the serial killer that he and Lucky have been hunting, just before he steals the captive detective's badge and issues a challenge: Can Ray face what he fears most - being exposed to the department and to the world as a gay cop? Because that's exactly what it will take to catch the deranged Jack.

From the very first scene, HARD immediately lets you know that it's not going to be your average gay thriller, and with its harsh message sharply delivered like a ball-peen hammer blow to the solar plexus, it goes way beyond the trappings of a noxious thriller like William Friedkin's reviled CRUISING, which had similar things to say about homophobia and indifference, only with a more exploitative bent.

It probably helped me appreciate this movie all the more that I saw the 'new' "FRIDAY THE 13TH" remake beforehand. After ninety minutes of practically mindless wall-to-wall gratuitous sex and nudity, followed by the spectacle of cardboard characters I could care less about being made into human sushi, it was refreshing to see scenes that were a lot more intense and better acted, produced with what probably equaled the catering budget on "FRIDAY".

Sure, the acting wasn't exactly Oscar-caliber and the low-budget seams were definitely showing. But Noel Palomaria's Ray Vates is an earnest, hard-working guy who only wants to do his job to the best of his ability and maybe have a life beyond it without the risk of being persecuted, while Malcolm Moorman's Jack has turned his back on the slightest possibility of love, embracing instead the virulent hatred he feels society has for him and all his kind, using it as the weapon of choice to do "exactly what everyone wants him to do", and never feel any remorse about it whatsoever. More than any other actors in the film, Palomaria and Moorman's scenes together crackle with dangerous chemistry, which is a big part of why the film works.

Lanyer lends solid support as Lucky, while the other actors are pretty much stock company-level. But that's not the important thing. HARD delivers its message loud and clear for those open-minded and thoughtful enough to listen. It is not delivered in a polite, cultured or genteel way, but it's not supposed to be, and couldn't be in order to get people's attention. And it's my hope that more viewers will take notice, since what it has to say is more topical and timely now than ever before.

A serial killer terrorizes and kills young gay men, urban drifters whom society couldn't care less about. And therein lies a clue to the killer's motivation, at least in part. "Hard" is not a whodunit, although, as a result of the film's editing, the identity of the killer is not revealed officially until almost halfway into the film. Up to that point, the killer, at least in theory, could be any of several people. There's also some intentional plot misdirection with regard to another character. Indeed, I think the film would have been stronger as a full-fledged whodunit, with all kinds of plot twists and turns. As is, the film reveals too much, too soon and, as a result, forgoes a sense of mystery and some suspense.

Even with a less than ideal plot, the film does a great job of conveying a sense of danger, especially toward the end. The visuals are dark, and when combined with sinister background music, create a tone that is menacing and foreboding. The finale takes place in an old, unused theater, and its creepy basement with wet floors, a holding place for previous victims. Here, at night, the cops close in. A beam of flashlight, a dilapidated stage, some rickety scaffolding, all that inky darkness, the perfect lair for a psychopath.

The film has suffered some bad press because the subject matter is not politically correct. There are lots of violent images, though very little in the way of violent action. The film also has a lot to say about police attitudes toward gays.

Edgy and cinematically risky, "Hard" grapples with difficult images and ideas. It isn't for everyone, in the same sense that the 1980 film "Cruising" was not for everyone. But even on a shoestring budget, "Hard" is a well-made film. It's an intriguing film, one that's best seen late at night, when all the lights are out.

Hard is one of those independent films that keeps you thinking long after the film is over. Exploring two segments of our society - police and street hustlers - for whom violence is a frequent occurrence, the film poignantly shows the internal struggles of being gay in a straight world, and graphically shows the external results of society's indifferent attitude toward gay victims of violence. The attitudes and results can easily be extrapolated at some level to the experiences of other segments of American society - minorities, the religious right, even smokers. Human beings can ignore, and thereby endorse, the repression of other human beings, so long as the repression doesn't personally affect them.

Hard is beautifully shot, but a few flaws will jump out at you - a couple of clunker lines, some low-budget props. But if you ignore those and look at the underlying message, you'll find your time well spent. I'll take Hard, warts and all, over a perfectly made but brain-deadening Miss Congeniality any day.