Circuit | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Circuit *½

by Ed Gonzalez on April 16, 2002 Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own

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With all the inter-office beatdowns and lonely nights at home, it's terrible being an openly gay police officer in rural America. It only makes sense then that John (Jonathan Wade Drahos) would make his way to West Hollywood, where a bump of K becomes his indoctrination into the film's lascivious gay culture. Circuit is, more or less, a lost episode of Showtime's "Queer as Folk." While the film nobly purports to expose the good and the bad of the gay circuit scene, good intentions are lost amid soap opera acting methods, gratuitous shots of plump asses and silhouettes of dicks, and ridiculous musical montages (not the ones inside the clubs, just the ones inside bedrooms set to "White Rabbit" and intercut with images of gay bacchanalia). Character trajectories are ridiculously off-kilter: the buff, straight-edged cop is too-easily hypnotized by gay culture; the Latino hustler is a grotesque caricature of superficiality; and the HIV+ sex performer who tragically caters to demands of his size queen audience. Sure, Circuit has authenticity to spare (part of the film was shot at the White Party and director Dirk Shafer understands the freedom provided by the gay ghetto), yet the film serves up punishment like a hokey Afterschool Special. Death is the obligatory punishment for exaggerated narcissism. Circuit queens won't learn a thing, they'll be too busy cursing the film's strategically placed white sheets.

Director(s): Dirk Shafer
Screenplay: Gregory Hinton, Dirk Shafer
Cast: Jonathan Wade-Drahos, Andre Khabbazi, William Katt, Kiersten Warren, Daniel Kucan, Nancy Allen, Brian Lane Green, Jim J. Bullock, Bruce Villanch
Distributor: Jour de Fête Films
Runtime: 120 min.
Rating: NR
Year: 2002