Ladymol's Review

I actually enjoyed the added feature on the making this movie more than I did the movie itself. The three lead actors just chat to camera and fool around with each other, and it’s rather charming.

The film is muddled and seemed to be deliberately coy, which irritated after a while. Cyrus, Tim and Erick are in Brazil, living in Cyrus’s rich father’s house. They don’t work, but have a pay-to-view webcam, on which they film each other kissing. There are some nice kisses in this film, but it never goes further than that. Erick meets a local TV actor and falls in love, but in a complete accident kills the man’s older brother.

I’m making it sound far more interesting than it really is, I think. The separate stories are not blended very well.

However, it is worth watching because of the screen chemistry between the four men—and if you watch the extra feature I mentioned, you’ll see why that is.

Beautiful scenery really pulls this one out of the totally amateur category, but only just.

Cerisaye's Review

This isn’t a great gay movie, but better than some we’ve seen.  It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than romantic melodrama, and an exotic setting, in Brazil, adds spice.  The film was shot on video using amateurs rather than professional actors, and on the usual minimal budget.

Three German lads are staying in a secluded island holiday house belonging to the wealthy father of one of them.  Pretty blond, Erik, has failed in some business venture, losing a lot of money, so he’s rather melancholy.  Tim’s band has broken up, and he moons around trying to interest the housekeeper in hip-hop, looking more geek than musician.  Cyrus is looking for his Brazilian mother, helped by a local magic woman.

The boys mess around enjoying themselves when not putting on a show for a live webcam for an internet site, presumably to raise money for the trip.  It’s sexy tease stuff rather than hardcore porn, a bit of fun.  They’re cute guys, with very nice bodies, well tanned from all that lazing about.

Erik gets into a tussle on the beach one night, a disagreement over who’s doing what in a clinch, leading to accidental death.  It drives him close to the edge.  Then he meets sweet local boy, Miguel, a black actor on a soap Erik has been watching obsessively.  Erik & Miguel fall in love, all shown very effectively.  But circumstances surrounding that death come back to haunt Erik, threatening to tear apart his relationship with Miguel.

It looks like the bulk of the small budget went on the trip to Brazil, because the story is underdeveloped, and dialogue might well be improvised.  But the strength of the film that makes it rise above the material is genuine warmth between the actors that translates to their onscreen characters.  Watch the ‘Making Of’ commentary and you’ll see these young gay guys had a great time bonding off-camera.

The writer/director has collaborated with Bruce Labruce, producing Hustler White and Raspberry Reich.  This isn’t in the same league, but it’s worth watching for some nice gay love scenes.  And Brazil looks beautiful.  German and English with subtitles.