A news story was reported in September of this year that the Amtrak Police Department, a federal police force that operates outside New York City's control, arrested over 200 men in a bathroom in Manhattan's Penn Station. The men were charged with public lewdness. Penn Station has been identified as a queer cruising spot, or a place where gay men can hook up and possibly have sex. However, those kinds of arrests are a form of entrapment in which the police really stopped engaging or lessened over the past 30 years. There's a term for gay men seeking anonymous sex in an open lavatory. The term is "cottaging." Many independent, gay films have depicted cottaging. One such example is Taxi Zum Klo (1981) and Great Freedom (2021), both German films. Often, the depiction of cottaging follows men who get arrested or could get arrested. It's rare that a film follows the police doing this kind of law enforcement.
Tom Blyth (Billy the Kid and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) stars as Lucas Brennan, a police officer in Syracuse, New York, in 1997. He's an undercover officer whose job is to bust men who are cottaging. Specifically, Lucas is the honey trap. He's a young attractive guy, tall, dark and handsome. He sits in the food court of a mall, which has been identified as a gay cruising spot. Lucas basically lures men into a bathroom stall where they expose themselves. Once they do, he leaves and allows his partner to arrest them. What people don't know is that Lucas isn't necessarily pretending to be attracted to these guys in order to trap them. Lucas might actually be attracted. What people don't know is that Lucas does in fact have same-sex feelings. Whether he's gay or bisexual or whatever label, he wants to be romantically involved with another man.
Russell Tovey (American Horror Story and Looking) co-stars as Andrew Waters, one of the men who gets lured into Lucas' trap. Andrew is married with children. However, he has his secret affairs with men that no one knows. It's not affairs, meaning love affairs. He just wants sex. He normally will have a hookup with a guy and then never see that guy again. For Lucas though, he breaks his rule and sees Lucas multiple times. In fact, it could be argued that the two are dating. Yet, in reality, the two only have a couple of encounters, possibly three. Andrew is more closeted than Lucas and has more to lose, so limiting or cutting off any more encounters is something he knows he has to do.
Lucas perhaps doesn't have as much to lose, but his level of fear and paranoia is off the charts. Lucas is afraid because he has homosexual feelings and it's obvious that he has fallen for Andrew, romantically. Lucas is scared at first that people will discover his secret. Secondly, he's scared that his feelings for Andrew are unrequited. This sends Lucas into a tailspin of anxiety that goes to extremes. Writer-director Carmen Emmi, in his feature debut, really focuses and emphasizes those anxieties, especially with Lucas' panic attacks, which are stylized moments here.
Emmi establishes early that this film is really about the mental health of his protagonist. It looks as if Emmi literally shot this feature on celluloid, as the film looks like Academy ratio on a 35 mm print. Mainly, the ratio is close to square. It's box-like, almost as if to box us into the head and the mind of the main character. Emmi in fact starts with a close-up of Lucas' eyes, underlining this film is from his point-of-view and he's delving into what's behind those eyes. Numerous close-ups of his eyes reinforce this. Emmi uses footage shot or mimicking the look of VHS video to represent Lucas' perspective or memory in a heightened way, particularly because VHS video was the tool of the time.
As I've started before, the mark of a good to great film is if the filmmaker can not only sell us on the main characters but also the supporting cast. Mainly, the supporting cast here is Lucas' family and girlfriend. Even though his family and girlfriend only have a couple of scenes, they have a lasting impact. Specifically, Maria Dizzia (13 Reasons Why and Orange is the New Black) plays Marie Brennan, the mother to Lucas, and Gabe Fazio plays Paul, possibly the maternal uncle to Lucas. Both Dizzia and Fazio have limited screen time, but, in that limited time, they make a huge impact and impression upon the film that anyone walking away from this will absolutely remember. However, they don't detract from Blyth's character of Lucas. They only help to enhance him all the more greatly. It's great direction on Emmi's part.
Not Rated but contains sexual situations and nudity.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 35 mins.
In select theaters.