Speechless (Wu yan)(Hong Kong / China 2012)

The Gist:

A mute, naked, western man is found along the side of a river in a town in mainland China. After being taken in by the police, he is sent to the local hospital where he and Xiao Jiang, a nurse, develop a bond with each other. When it is eventually decided to send the mysterious man to a mental asylum, Xiao Jiang decides to take a risk and flee the town with the mystery man in tow. 

Comments (with some spoilers):

The movie is rather good. The story is interesting, it is gorgeous to look at, is mostly well done, and well-acted. Not to say there are no issues with the movie. There are, mainly with pacing. 

Towards the end of the movie there is an extended flashback explaining what happened to traumatize the stranger into muteness, so spoiler, the mystery is solved. The problem with this is that the flashback is long enough that it changes the flow of the movie, and the transition from flashback back to the current story ends up feeling somewhat awkward. The final fate of the characters is also somewhat confusing, to me at least. They are just in a new situation with no explanation given as to what happened between the climax of the story and the end of the story to put them there.

Once the stranger’s backstory is shown it also made it hard to keep up the suspension of disbelief thing going. Essentially, the fact that the police can’t figure out who he is makes them seem incompetent. 

It is sounding like I didn't like the movie, which is incorrect. These issues don't negate that the movie is good and the story intriguing. It's definitely worth trying. Assuming you don’t mind subtitles (or speak Mandarin that is).

Content wise aside, the story behind the making of the movie is interesting as well. It seems that because permission to film it would be denied by the government, it was filmed in secret in mainland China. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity:

There is some nudity in the movie, but I would argue that it is not gratuitous as it is used to help tell the story. At the beginning highlighting the mute man's sense of innocence, and during later scenes to well, esplaining that would be a spoiler.

• Director: Simon Chung
• Writer: Simon Chung, Lu Yulai
• Actors: Pierre-Matthieu Vital, Qilun Gao, Yung Yung Yu, Jian Jiang
• 92 min
• Mandarin and English (at least that's how it's listed on IMBD, actually there's barely any English dialogue)
• IMDB

Rhythm and Blues (U.K. 2000)

The Gist:

In London, an attractive man named John befriends a skinhead, Byron, and though Byron in extremely swift order: is convinced he should be become a hustler; joins a gay male escort service; and is chosen for hire by an older, eccentric, rich American called Bad Daddy for a night of debauchery. As all this is going on a mysterious serial killer hustler, "The Rent Boy Ripper," is murdering his clients.

Comments:

First off, the movie is largely bad. It's a gay, hustler, murder thriller, comedy; and it doesn't particularly "do" any of those adjectives very well. 

There are occasional humorous moments, but overall the movie is not that funny. The thriller / mystery part of the story alternates between being mildly interesting and boring. The acting ranges from bad to adequate, which is not helped by occasionally confusing dialogue. That last bit is in reference to dialogue / editing, as the movie has people occasionally referencing conservations that only take place in deleted scenes. 

Negatives aside, the movie has an odd charm to it, a sort of low budget, sad, Britishness to it that made me not mind how bad it was. Then again maybe I didn't mind that the movie sucked because I think Paul Blackthorne (John) is hot. 

Regardless of how prurient thoughts affected my judgement, the movie is not worth watching. Unless you're into comedic hustler thrillers that aren't particularly humorous, thrilling, or good that is. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

No

Gratuitous nudity:

Women, yes. 
Men, teasingly nearly, but no actual nudity 

• Director: Stephen Lenhoff
• Writer: Michael Jones
• Actors: Angus MacInnes, Ian Henderson, Paul Blackthorne
• 98 min
• IMDB

Out To Kill (U.S. 2014)

The Gist:

A gay private investigator moves into a gay condo complex where he meets his gay neighbors: a gay middle-aged couple, a gay singer, a mysterious gay, a gay dentist, and a gay threesome of three gay sex positive, hot gay men. Before he can settle down into his new gay life in the gayborhood there’s a gay murder when one of his gay neighbors ends up gay dead, but who did it when almost all the gays hated the dead gay guy?

Comments with some minor spoilers that do not reveal the solution to "who done it": 

Okay, I’m obviously being facetious with my overuse of the word gay in the plot summary. Unfairly so, as this is not the first, last, nor only movie where essentially every single person in town is gay. Well, except for the lone woman present and presumably the unseen Tampa police (who are described as not caring if a gay guy is dead). It is just that for whatever reason it seems more obvious in this movie than most, just how insular and gay specific these men’s lives are.

Despite all this ‘gay’ going around, the murder plot is not actually ‘gay’ dependent, and (given some changes in gender to force it into the 'real' world) could easily be a murder mystery of the week TV movie, well, if murder mystery movies of the week were still a thing that is.  The mystery is a fair play one, more or less, and if you pay attention to the clues is solvable. Maybe too solvable? I tend to assume any story where I can figure out the murderer before the end as being too easy. 

Mystery aside, switching to the quality of the movie, it's clear that many of the actors were hired for their looks rather than acting skills. Which brings up that the casting is a little odd in that it’s not just attractive mostly white men, but rather attractive mostly white men who all appear to be roughly the same age. I don't think it is actually the case, but given there are jokes about the middle-aged couple being an entire generation older than everyone else, it is weird how everyone seems to be within five-seven years of each other. 

In the end, it’s neither overly bad nor good, just an average meh movie, and no loss if you miss it or not.

Women:

One

People of Color:

One

Gratuitous nudity:

Is a bare butt shot of a guy described in story as being a slut character development rather than an excuse at fulfilling gay flick stereotypes of nakedness for the sake of nakedness? Considering the way the rest of the movie is done, in this case I'd say yes it is. 

• Director: Rob Williams
• Writer: Rob Williams
• Actors: Scott Sell, Rob Moretti, Marc Strano
• Time
• IMDB

2 Minutes Later (US 2007)

The Gist:

After insurance investigator Michael Dalmar's twin brother, a famous photographer, goes missing, he partners with private detective Abigail Marks, pretending to be his own arrogant brother in order to find out what has happened to him. 

Comments with minor spoilers:

We have a movie playing around with mystery movie cliches and expectations by giving us a womanizing lesbian detective and a relatively passive gay man as her partner. Although reversing gender expectations is about as far as it messes around with the mystery formula. All the other expected cliches are still there. Monologue voice over narration. Private eye who used to be a cop. Guns with unlimited bullets. Good twin, evil twin. People making stupid decisions. People acting oddly in odd ways to ensure clues are had (such as carrying around a stamped, self addressed envelop in order to mail yourself the MacGuffin). A detective in very thin stiletto heels that make you cringe in sympathetic pain as she runs towards a shoot out.

Okay. Maybe not that last one, especially since a real lesbian, "lipstick" or not, would have taken those shoes off before running into danger. Regardless, for the most part this is a standard mystery movie, although not a fair play one, and one painted over broadly in "gay," so throw gay flick cliches into the mix as well. Most notably lots and lots of male nudity. Seriously, a lot. The missing brother's job as famous *sshole photographer allows for far more floppy penises than usual in a gay flick. 

Cliches and penises aside, the movie is neither particularly good nor bad. but rather just ok. The acting is adequate and the story is told more or less competently. The movie was obviously designed for sequels, although as far as I can tell there have been no further adventures of our queer detective team. 

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes. Lots

• Director: Robert Gaston
• Writer: Robert Gaston 
• Actors: Michael Molina, Jessica Graham 
• 78 min
• IMDB