"LIGHT GRADIENT"
Director: Jan Kruger
Trevor's Rating: 1.5 / 5 Stars

This could have been the perfect easy, breezy summer gay flick! The setting was magnificent: Rural Germany, Brandenburg to be precise. But from the moment this film started I could tell it was going to be a disaster. Shoddy camerawork, generic autofocus, and pixellated images due to subpar equipment all work together to poison this film from ever excelling past the made-for-TV level. From the start, I kept screaming in my head to "BACK UP!" The shots were always so close-up and cramped, it made me uncomfortable in my seat. I guess this decision was the result of a crappy camera that couldn't get much detail from far-away, but it made for a very unpleasant viewing experience.

Light Gradient's story is a simple recipe that's been attempted dozens of times. The film chronicles the journeys of Johann and Robin as they travel the countryside together. I expected some awkward rolls in the hay, and they were certainly present. But mostly we got a weird contradiction between general freedom with full frontal male nudity while showering, but when the sex actually got started the camera panned over to farm animals. WTF? With a film so bad, a hot sex scene could have at least made it worth my time. Alas, there was to be no sexytime on film.

The boys -- played by Sebastian Schlecht (Johann) and Eric Golub (Robin) -- are cute, but in a generic kind of way. They never find their stride in front of the camera, and even when making out they lack any kind of screen presence. They seemed to be straight out of bad German porn -- you know, the kind with the dubbed moaning and generically cute boys. That's this pair. Perhaps it's the result of bad direction, but the two are the thespian equivalent of a painfully flat note.

But halfway or so through the film, they wander onto a farm in search of food. We're introduced to Henri, the young boy who lives on the farm. There's an incredibly contrived scene in which Henri -- a beautiful waif of a boy -- holds up Robin and Johann at gunpoint to prevent the two from running away. "Now," I thought, "we're going to see some action!" It was totally the plot of a thousand terrible gay porn flicks from Eastern Europe. "Oh, please! Don't make me do that!" Alas, my thirst for a threeway was never quenched.

But I must say here that Denis Alevi, who plays Henri, is truly beautiful. Unlike Schlecht and Golub, who never shined on camera, Alevi's face comes to life on screen. It's not that Schlect and Golub aren't sexy -- they're very much so -- but Alevi just translates on film. He's got the beautiful hair, the olive-toned skin, and the heart-shaped face that all work together to make him quite appealing. And while his first moments on film are a total disaster, he warms up quickly and finds his stride. I'm not saying his performance changed my life, but in relation to the rest of the film, he was a glimmer of hope.

All in all, I have to say this was a real lemon of a film. Which was disappointing, given the fact that a few reworked elements could have really changed its fate.