Testosterone ** (2003, David Sutcliffe, Celina Font, Antonio Sabato Jr, Jennifer Coolidge, Sonia Braga) – Classic Movie Review 13,246

 ‘I’m just a fag with a gun who needs a chainsaw.’ David Moreton’s 2003 dark romantic comedy drama film Testosterone is well set up, and there is some good campy and sexy teasing fun.

Dean Seagrave: ‘I’m just a fag with a gun who needs a chainsaw. And there’s an Argentine Home Depot!’

Director David Moreton’s 2003 dark romantic comedy drama film Testosterone is well set up and starts interestingly and promisingly, and there is some good campy and sexy teasing fun as it goes along. But, after a while, it turns into an increasingly infuriating black comedy thriller that has no credibility or touch with reality, though that, apparently, is the point. It ends with a talking head, for heaven’s sake!

David Sutcliffe stars as Dean Seagrave, a handsome thirty-something gay graphic novelist living in LA who is writer’s blocked for a follow-up to his successful debut graphic novel I was a Teenage Speed Freak. So his frank-speaking editor, Louise (Jennifer Coolidge), is hounding him and gives him an ultimatum.

Lonely and depressed, Dean flies off to Argentina to search for his Argentine boyfriend Pablo (Antonio Sabato Jr), who went out one night for cigarettes and never came back. But Pablo’s secretive, controlling mother (Sônia Braga), Pablo’s ex-lover Marcos (Leonardo Brzezicki), and Marcos’s enigmatic sister Sofia (Celina Font) – conspire to prevent him from finding Pablo. The whole story, we can guess, is the main character’s new graphic novel. Let me guess, it’ll be called Testosterone.

The main character is an arrogant and aggressive American, as described, which gives the rather appealing actor David Sutcliffe and the audience some considerable difficulty, though Sutcliffe coasts along quite nicely on his looks and charm. The formidable Jennifer Coolidge has a few good moments and lines, though she could do with more of both, but Sônia Braga is largely wasted as the wicked queen family matriarch, mainly being used for iconic value.

The movie is however smartly, and fragrantly filmed David Moreton, who at least keeps it lively and surprising. The bleak tone is awkward, too hot to handle maybe. It’s noticeable that the film first starts falling apart when the hero pulls a gun, and credibility is shaken, and then there’s a lot more unconvincing gun stuff, and murder thriller elements that don’t hold water.

Okay then, several marks for trying and some marks for entertainment value.

Dennis Hensley adapts James Robert Baker’s novel Testosterone.

Stars David Sutcliffe, Celina Font, Antonio Sabato Jr, Jennifer Coolidge, Sônia Braga and Leonardo Brzezicki.

Writers James Robert Baker, Dennis Hensley, David Moreton.

David Moreton is the director of Edge of Seventeen (1998), Testosterone (2003), A Good Funeral (2009), and Big America (2024).

David Sutcliffe announced his retirement from acting on 20 May 2019 on his Facebook page.

Jennifer Coolidge (born August 28, 1961)

Jennifer Coolidge is considered a gay icon and is often impersonated by drag queens. She said in 2021 that she surrounded herself socially with gay men and women from a young age. She has long expressed her support for the LGBT+ community. In 1999, she got her big break playing Stifler’s mom in American Pie. From 2004 to 2006, she played Joey Tribbiani’s oversexed agent Bobbie Morganstern in the NBC comedy series Joey.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,246

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