Brother's Desire, A Review

Reviewed by Joe Shaver  on  3/21/2003

It was a clever notion to make a gay version of A Streetcar Named Desire. But that’s as far as it got here. This is the DVD release of an earlier HIS Video. I don’t know why they put it on DVD. Well, actually, I do know. It was to make a buck. Now, as I said a gay version of Streetcar could have been a real hoot. But this one is just Ho-Hum. And the performances, well, to call the acting atrocious, is to compliment it.

We begin with Blanche (or rather Blaine) arriving to visit his brother and his lover Stan. Blaine as played by Chris Yeager should more appropriately have been named Bland as this guy has all the verve and personality of a parking meter. This is just one of the many flaws in this misfire, but it’s an important one. Blanche is fascinating, she is a slut, she’s got spunk and nervous energy. Yeager’s Blaine is uninteresting, passionless, lazy, indifferent, and the only spunk he has pops out of his dick.

Peter Bishop as his brother is perfect casting. (Not for the role but for being Yeager’s brother. Yawn.) and Vince Rockland is Stan. Now I was something of a fan of Vince. He has a hunk bod and a nice uncut piece of meat. But he looks goony here. Is it the make-up? The camera angles? He looks awful.

The best lookers are Ryan Block who plays the paperboy (his sex is with the unenthusiastic Mr. Yeager) and Johnny Ringo (whose sex scene is with the unenthusiastic Mr. Bishop). Ringo’s sucking of Bishop is faked. Ringo appears in better films with Studio 2000 as Mark Montana. The other actors are average in appearance except for one who is absolutely repulsive. He’s paired with a real cutie, which is offsetting to say the least. I simply couldn’t watch this scene. I was feeling nauseous.

I never got hard at any time watching this DVD. I did, as noted above, get turned off. Gino Colbert’s films are for the most part mediocre to bad. When they are good or interesting like Three Brothers and Night Walk it’s because they have a co-director. I was surprised to see that ace director Lucas Kazan was the Production Manager on this turkey. I guess these were Lucas’ galley years when he was learning the business. Of course directors also need to learn what not to do. This was a valuable lesson for that.