Outing Riley

Here's a novel idea: a movie about a closeted gay Irish-Catholic whose sexual preference is really secondary to his general personality as a sloppy, stupid grown man who acts like a child. With three brothers (one a priest) and a sister, Pete Jones' Bobby Riley finds he has to use a lesbian as a beard and make lots of small talk about women around his siblings (except for sis, who knows the truth). Thirty minutes into the movie, Bobby is up on a neighbor's roof ogling the female resident as she spreads lotion on her legs, while his voice-over informs us he was a voyeur long before a homosexual. So what was writer-director Jones before he was a pseudo-filmmaker? Offensive to just about everyone (gays, lesbians, Irish-Catholics, priests, women in general), this low-budget effort is filled with innuendo-crazed dialogue and a sniggering familial unit by way of a TV sitcom ('funny' scene example: Riley, after sneaking into his priest-brother's confessional booth, pretends to be a little boy who spies on his grandma in the shower). This is just the thing is kill off cinema (not just Queer Cinema, but ANY cinema) forever. Pure drivel. NO STARS from ****

I have to give credit to Pete Jones, who wrote, directed and starred in this low-budget 2004 indie, for having the temerity to make a coming-out film when he is apparently straight. And therein lies the rub since Jones doesn't really lend an informed perspective to his protagonist's trying situation. He plays Bobby Riley, a Chicago advertising account executive who happens to be gay and happily partnered. He also happens to come from a traditional Irish-Catholic family, a sister who knows he's gay and three brothers who don't. The movie is primarily about Bobby's struggle to come out to his brothers now that their father has just passed away and the time has come for their annual fishing trip together. While one can envision how Bobby's admission would lead to liberation and tolerance, Jones also superficially belabors Bobby's angst to the aggravating point of making me indifferent to his fate.

A lot of the problem I had with the movie is the predictable and often forced humor Jones employs to ingratiate the character to the viewer. In what strikes me as film-making laziness, he goes as far as breaking the fourth wall, speaking to the camera, and using freeze-frames to either provide thumbnail sketches of the principal characters or comment on the action. The set-up with the brothers is also pretty generic as they represent variations on the beer-guzzling stereotypes one would expect from a movie at least forty years older. Two are married - Luke is a pothead with twin daughters, and Connor is a John Sununu look-alike who surfs the Web for porn. Oldest brother Jack is a Catholic priest, which sets him up for the most challenging road toward acceptance. Once the key revelation occurs, the inevitable ramifications at least allow for the film's few honest moments, the most effective being Luke's angry voicemail message in response to what he sees as Bobby's betrayal.

In his acting debut, the cherubic Jones makes little impression as the bedeviled Bobby. Nathan Fillion, who would later play the smitten doctor in the late Adrienne Shelly's "Waitress", fares the best among the actors portraying the brothers, and Michael McDonald of "MADtv" (not the singer) is surprisingly credible as Bobby's partner Andy. Julie Pearl is forced to play Bobby's sister Maggie as the nagging voice of conscience in order to facilitate the contrived plot conceit that proves disappointing toward the end. Jeff Garlin ("Curb Your Enthusiasm", "I Want to Someone to Eat Cheese With") shows up in a cameo as a blowhard agency honcho trying to recruit Bobby believing him to be straight. I appreciate how Jones does not wrap everything up nicely at the end, although he sadly uses a stereotypical fantasy swimming number to get his point across. The much-delayed 2007 DVD features a commentary track from Jones, interviews and deleted scenes.

It's raw, powerful and hilarious. Director Pete Jones takes risks here- no compromises! He lets it ALL hang out! He draws upon deep personal stuff here from his youth. This is the type of material that you need to see to believe and then you still don't believe it so you have to see it again and again and again!

I don't think there was a single gay person working on this film...and it showed. This is not a gay film, it is what a straight guy, who has probably never seen a gay film, thinks a gay film should be. Like Brokeback Mountain, which was made almost entirely by straight people, I never felt the sincerity of the gay thing. However, unlike Brokeback, this didn't have the story, the scenery or the strong acting to keep me entertained (even if I never fully believe that Jake and Heath were in love.) I knew nothing about this film, or writer/director/star Pete Jones, yet after watching it I was absolutely sure that he was straight and probably not all that familiar with gay people. As it turns out, he is straight and in one interview he admitted to very limited exposure to gay people. No surprise there. But I was further disappointed to read his kissing-a-boy-is-icky interview where he talks about how nervous he and everyone else was when they filmed the kiss in bed. He talks about it like it was so difficult and it was some big deal that they made it through the scene. Ugh. You didn't cure cancer...you touched lips with a guy. Stop acting like it was some huge achievement. All of these straight actors doing gay films need to take a lesson from Patrick Swayze who did some wonderful interviews after To Wong Foo and didn't turn into a giggling fifth grader when he talked about playing gay. Also Hilary Swank -- great interviews on playing queer. So, while this is not the worst film I've ever seen (not even the worst gay film) this film did nothing for me and I do not recommend the rental.

Watch the movie for what it is: A low budget Indie comedy about a man coming out to his Irish Catholic family. There are no deep meanings or inspirational messages. It is not a "Gay" film, and it never attempted to be one. It is a comedy about a Gay topic. More "Will & Grace" than "Citizen Kane." Seems that most people who didn't like the movie were looking for a deeper meaning. If you are looking for a life affirming movie, or one to truly give you insight as to what it is like to grow up Gay in a straight world, this is not your movie. If you want a light hearted look into coming out to your family where you can shut your brain off and just laugh a little, then give it a shot.