The Velocity of Gary

Why does Gary love the loser Bi porno star with AIDS? Why does loser ex-waitres who is pregnant with the loser Bi porno star with AIDS love him? And why does she put up with Gary? What does the Velocity of Gary mean anyway? A slice of life? Perhaps. More likely you will find this trite film a seedy half-baked poetic play of a threeway without a background, cause or reason for us to care about these characters instead we are force fed fancy playwright words written solely for a pat ending we've seen a million times. And better.

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.

What a pleasure it is to discover a little film which presents little pieces of your own life story. This is a film that I imagine many will question what the hell is the point. It feels like an exploratory independent film that doesn't try to be very clever or cool, just an ordinary story with plenty of room for randomness. As it fits in neither the energetic class of cinema characterized by Tarantino and Fellini, nor the understated class a la Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Gus Van Sant, it won't impress the entertainment seekers and may not work for the purists. That said, I personally liked it more than not.

The great Michelangelo Antonioni said that films are not to be understood; they are to be experienced. As a film VELOCITY may not score high, but viewing it was an experience which I will not forget soon. The scenes with the deaf boy in drag were simply poignant and memorable. I'll never forget the priceless look on his face when his wig was pulled away by the rascals. It was a look which captured a thousand unspoken words that few, if any, Hollywood star would be capable of replicating. His pursuit of Gary brings back traces of my own memory. For me, this character was the primary saving grace of the film; his "acting" was superb, so heart-felt that I'm not sure if it's acting or reality--probably a hybrid of both.

In summary, VELOCITY is a film where some fragments are better than the whole package. Whether or not you can enjoy the film probably depends on how much your life experience draws you to the characters.

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.