Review of Eating Out

Introduction

You know those movies (we`ve all rented them) that, following an aimless visit to Blockbusters you end up pulling from the shelf and `giving it a go` because the cover looked good, or it features some particularly hot boys and / or girls, only to get it home and realise you`ve been duped. This is one of those movies - so please be warned.

For those of you who fell in love with Ryan Carnes in `Desperate Housewives` my recommendation is to give this a wide berth. This is a really tastelessly poor movie with turgid dialogue (despite the `review` on the box) and some really painful acting. It also looks and feels like a low budget VHS transfer so really has nothing to redeem it.

What`s particularly remarkable about this film is that, despite clearly targeting it at a gay market (there`s one kissy-kissy homo-erotic piece that might raise an eyebrow at best), it manages to consistently offend that audience. Here`s a snatch of that `snappy dialogue` to give you a (bad) taste of what you can look forward to. When one character asks someone if they`re positive about something they`ve just said, she replies `I couldn`t be more positive if I`d been gang-raped at a needle farm…`. Nice.

Another curious thing is that the leading lady here is a complete mess of contradictions with no redeeming characteristics at all, delivering all dialogue with the most irritating nasal drone I think I`ve ever heard. Why anyone would go to any lengths to win her affections (which are very freely given) is beyond me. The gay love triangle is confusing and unbelievable too, using some astonishingly bad dialogue to move this heartless and distasteful plot forward a plodding inch at a time.

For those who could care less, the plot is loosely about a guy getting a girl by pretending to be gay…and eventually even having an enjoyable `gay` moment in the process.

I watched this open-mouthed, even convincing myself for a few minutes that the bad dialogue would end, the camera would pull out and reveal that these were merely actors in a bad movie or TV show and the real film would begin. No such luck.

Video

Ouch! This is like a VHS transfer to video. Look at the black out of white captions during the end titles as a useful reference - they`re breaking up and almost illegible. Nasty.

Audio

Though dialogue is clear throughout, the audio mix is extremely poor. I imagine audio-post was under-nourished and rushed as some scenes are entirely devoid of room atmos, and others (like a party with hardly anyone there) have atmos sound fx entirely out of keeping with what`s in view. Rubbish.

Features

None on this disc (thank the lord!) though a `photo gallery` and `trailer` are mentioned on the eventual packaging.

Conclusion

This `man pretends to be gay to get lady comedy` is amongst the worst movies that I`ve ever endured with no redeeming features at all.

Its turgid dialogue and plot is matched only by the unconvincing performances and horrible picture and sound quality.

It`s distasteful in the extreme managing to offend just about anyone who may have an interest in the film at all.

The only really good thing about this incredibly bad movie is that it`s mercifully short, running at just over 80 minutes. That`s about 80 minutes too long in my book.

The cover claims that this is a `…modern day variant on a Shakespearian Comedy`. For my money this is far nearer to tragedy for whoever put up the cash for such a god-awful movie. Avoid at all costs!