This was an improvement over the director's first feature (Open Cam), but not by much. The acting was generally better, although still consistent with a very low budget, genuinely independent film.
The main problem with this movie is, once again, a director with limited experience directing from his own script. The director is quoted in an interview as stating he wanted to make the film after taking Open Cam to festivals and watching lesbians going into one theater to see 'their' film and men going into separate theaters for the male films. However, simply writing a movie about a gay twin investigating his own brother's (a photographer) disappearance and adding a female detective who just happens to be lesbian and who just happens to be hired by the missing brother's agent to find him, isn't even a fortuitous coincidence, but merely the bald use of a bad and tired plot device.
The movie feels like a made for (cable) television movie/pilot, down to the question mark with the title card for "the end." It probably is a concept that the director would have had better luck selling to someplace like Logo or Here!, but they would have been far better served to pick up any decent gay mystery novels, in particular Nathan Aldyne's Daniel Valentine mystery (Canary, Cobalt, Slate, or Vermilion) and adapting them.
The nudity, of the models of the photographer, was wholly gratuitous and seemingly designed to cater to an audience that isn't aware that internet porn is just a click and credit card away -- or that hundreds of blog feature far more erotic or nude photography (with generally far more attractive models) with just a simple mouse click.
The humor was of the very forced, "I learned everything I know from I Love Lucy episodes" down to having the dyke pull her pistol (with the limitless supply of bullets) out of her clutch while running in high heels after the murderer, who apparently has nothing better to do after committing several crimes than to simply wait and skulk around, hanging around for a chance to get at evidence that is never fully explained how the missing twin discovered he had taken in the first place. There are also just way to many loopholes in the story, like why the photographer didn't just get in his car instead of escaping on foot, why no one had recovered his body after that length of time, much less inquired about the car abandoned at the gas station, how the murderer was able to readily find him and shoot him the dark, without the advantage of a head start and on a moonless night no less! - and these are just some of the contradictions in the opening minutes!
The main problem with this movie is, once again, a director with limited experience directing from his own script. The director is quoted in an interview as stating he wanted to make the film after taking Open Cam to festivals and watching lesbians going into one theater to see 'their' film and men going into separate theaters for the male films. However, simply writing a movie about a gay twin investigating his own brother's (a photographer) disappearance and adding a female detective who just happens to be lesbian and who just happens to be hired by the missing brother's agent to find him, isn't even a fortuitous coincidence, but merely the bald use of a bad and tired plot device.
The movie feels like a made for (cable) television movie/pilot, down to the question mark with the title card for "the end." It probably is a concept that the director would have had better luck selling to someplace like Logo or Here!, but they would have been far better served to pick up any decent gay mystery novels, in particular Nathan Aldyne's Daniel Valentine mystery (Canary, Cobalt, Slate, or Vermilion) and adapting them.
The nudity, of the models of the photographer, was wholly gratuitous and seemingly designed to cater to an audience that isn't aware that internet porn is just a click and credit card away -- or that hundreds of blog feature far more erotic or nude photography (with generally far more attractive models) with just a simple mouse click.
The humor was of the very forced, "I learned everything I know from I Love Lucy episodes" down to having the dyke pull her pistol (with the limitless supply of bullets) out of her clutch while running in high heels after the murderer, who apparently has nothing better to do after committing several crimes than to simply wait and skulk around, hanging around for a chance to get at evidence that is never fully explained how the missing twin discovered he had taken in the first place. There are also just way to many loopholes in the story, like why the photographer didn't just get in his car instead of escaping on foot, why no one had recovered his body after that length of time, much less inquired about the car abandoned at the gas station, how the murderer was able to readily find him and shoot him the dark, without the advantage of a head start and on a moonless night no less! - and these are just some of the contradictions in the opening minutes!