Cock & Bull Story (2002) User Reviews

Great Premise with Flawed Execution

[traceytoney · 4/10 · 29 May 2006]

OK, first let me say that the only character in this "queer" film who actually admits to being queer is promptly stomped into paralysis by one lead character while the other lead—Travis the brave boxer—looks on from within a spasm of closet queen cowardice.

OK, next let me admit that the premise of this film is truly intriguing and that the illustrated degrees of brutality, homophobia and self hate certainly do exist (within places and people that I strive hard to stay far the hell away from). Even so, I would have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a thug-sexy boxer whose homo feelings only surface when he clenches with another fighter. To experience this, I would have withstood a moderate amount of epithet slinging, misogyny, gay bashing and melodrama. Unfortunately this noxious muddle of hate and overwrought character acting is given more weight than the main character's emotional awakening (such as it is).

Also, some of the plot points are implausible. It seems curious that, while gay bashings are the norm in Travis's clique, he is spared the dark alley ambush in favor of graffiti epithets and a ringside psych out. Though some of the thugs have a stake in Travis's career, it seems unlikely that all of these hard-drinking, impulse control impaired lads would have restrained themselves.

I hesitate to venture that a promising premise was sacrificed to give Brian Austin Green a showcase for the sinister heat(?) that transformed his 90210 character from geeky sidekick to laughable b-boy wannabe. Also, I won't dwell on the home life scenes that are so clichéd that you'd think you were watching 90-666.

Films of this type seem to want to have it both ways. They glorify violence to make the "point" that violence has negative effects on all concerned. Thus they sell to the bashers as well as the (gullible) bashed.

Lastly, I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to suffer all this to reach a climax in which the hero finally admits that he hates being aroused by men…but that he loves channeling that arousal and self hate into annihilating rage.

Hmmm…wow…how original.

Well, Not Necessarily

[giovanni-19 · 6/10 · 20 February 2005]

I believe that this was a well intentioned effort although it leaves a gay viewer with the desire to do harm to at least one of the principals both of whom are doing their best. Brian A. Green does a very good job of shedding his light weight past so to speak and Bret is working double time to achieve some kind of pathos.

The proclivities demonstrated are very, very real and if only Fight Club had gone there. The marriage of hand to hand combat (most of its forms) and homo-eroticism is not an uncommon theme. This was a good, honest effort at realism. It's not a PSA.

My intuition tells me that the intention here is to show how misguided homophobia is and how it not only is the source of great harm to others but also to oneself. In the right hands this could have been a brilliant movie, for example David Storey's.

Terribly old-fashioned movie (& not in a good way)

[paulcrake · 1/10 · 2 June 2003]

"Cock & Bull Story" (it's now reverted to its original name) is based fairly closely on a fringe play of the same name.

The lead characters are afflicted with a degree of self-loathing that makes them victims of their own hatred. It's tough to sympathise with them. The only outlet they've managed to find for their emotional & sexual (self-)repression is extreme violence - both in the boxing ring and on the street. There is no happy ending in this film and, without giving too much away (of a denouement that's telegraphed about an hour before it arrives), it sticks with the 1960s tradition that the homosexuals have to either commit suicide, be murder victims, or end in some other unhappy way. I think this is meant to be a movie about repressed homosexuality, yet the only (fairly graphic) sex scene is straight. It's hard to work out who the film-makers want to see this film, or what their message is. It got a very, very muted reception at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival so I guess happy homosexuals aren't the target group.

Good points? Well, the establishing shots of a rundown city centre are well-done. And the two leading cast members seem pretty dedicated. Erm... that's about it.

Overall: not recommended unless you're a raging homophobe.

Garbage

[johnh91011 · 12 June 2003]

I recently saw this movie at a film festival. I totally agree with the previous reviewer. This movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities. I personally think that the characters, the filming, the writing and the directing is severely sub standard. There are inconsistencies in the whole movie. Even the basic premise that leads to the accusation of the main characters being gay is faulty since boxers usually wear cups to protect their private parts. The boxing scenes themselves are unbelievable and the homophobia is so rampant as to be utterly distasteful.

I wonder why it was released again under another name?

Not politically correct but tense and effective

[pogostiks · 7/10 · 1 March 2007]

First of all, I have to put down some of the people here who are writing about this being a homophobic and self-hating film. Do you people really think that these kinds of people don't exist? There are many areas in which men can find themselves in close contact with other men, and as much as they roll their shoulders and swagger and swear and talk about getting some p*ssy, well, the fact is that underneath all of that is sometimes a very mixed up individual who may take ages to get over the repressed feelings that he wants to hide from everyone including himself.

So what have we here in this film? Two buddies, one (Jacko) a very scary, violent nut-case that basically puts everyone off, even his own best buddy (Travis) half of the time. And Travis, the up-and-coming boxer who has to face his own repressed feelings every time he goes into a clinch in the ring.

I agree, some of the dialogue here is not the best ever, and the editing may need some tightening up; nevertheless there is a mounting tension in the film that works well, and some of the performances are well worth the price of admission. When we first see Jacko in the ring and he sees the face of his opponent for the first time, it is a truly amazing moment. Was it the lighting, the camera angle, the intensity of the opponent's stare? Whatever it was, it is a moment that is incredibly effective, erotic, beautiful and scary, all at once. At least as effective as a similar shot of Robert de Niro in Raging Bull.

The cinematography was good for creating mood, as was the lighting... in fact the production values were generally quite acceptable. If I gave this movie a seven, it is because, despite the weaknesses, the two main characters are fleshed out and nuanced enough by the actors that we get drawn into their torment despite our possible reservations. I truly believe that if the gay audience wasn't so insistent on political correctness, that this film would have made a bigger splash than it did. It is certainly as good as a lot of the other stuff out there that simply gives the public what they want to see.

Lives up to its name

[charlesclasen · 3/10 · 23 March 2006]

Travis is a pretty, hunky young amateur boxer who needs to win his way out of Southside, a no-hope hole in a post-industrial wasteland, to the promised land of Las Vegas (no less). Jacko is his best friend, older and a serial loser loathed by both Travis's coach and his girlfriend. Throw in doting mother and tyrannical Alpha-male father unable to put meat on the table. To punch his way to Vegas, Travis has to defeat Sangster, another pretty boy with whom he has an unsettling pre-fight encounter in the men's room, unaware it is his opponent. The rest of the movie spirals off in a riot of homophobia vs tacit homosexuality, which leaves corpses in the street and the most implausible and extended locker room conversation imaginable - above all after a fight.

This movie deserved a better plot. It starts so well, unforgettable location shots, good music, strong first scenes, good performances. It is nearly always nice to look at, but the story trails off into near farcical implausibility – you can't expect even best buddies to behave this way, or believe the fight-winning potential of the guilty secret that emerges.

Curiously 'A Cock and Bull Story' is based on a play of the same name by Richard Crowe and Richard Zauduc (yes, exactly) - so you are warned that it will be long on words, short on action. Is it possible the authors. dazzled by pink innuendo, forgot the title's main meaning? Because that is what A Cock and Bull Story richly lives up to.

A Brave and Deeply Disturbing Movie That Deserves a Wider Audience

[gradyharp · 9/10 · 14 February 2006]

Billy Hayes may be best known for his novel cum 1978 film 'Midnight Express' which detailed his tortured life in a Turkish prison. But here Hayes turns his penchant for grit and the raw surface of the bigotry of gang violence and amateur boxing into a tale about the intense struggles young men from the dark side of the tracks have in accepting their sexuality. It is a tough story, never flinching on reality or detail, but it drives its message home like a stake through the chest.

Travis Coleman (Bret Roberts) is a handsome young amateur boxer, very much in the closet as a gay man, whose best friend Jacko (Brian Austin Green) is a ne're-do-well gay basher who, though dedicated to his friend's future as a boxer, is equally dedicated to street fighting anyone who questions the asexual closeness of their friendship. Travis has a girlfriend Annie (Wendy Fowler) who disapproves of Travis' friendship with Jacko. Travis is torn between caring for his abused mother (Kay Lenz), training with his fight manager Pascoe (Greg Mullavy), maintaining his high maintenance friendship with Jacko, and coming to grips with his moments of self discovery that his true physical needs are in the 'clinch' during a fight when he recognizes (terrified) that he is sexually attracted to men. When he fights Sangster (Christian Payne) a 'Northie' (we have no idea which town this is except that it has a Northside and Southside in conflict) he is sexually aroused, a fact that Sangster confides in his Northie buddies. Homophobic epithets are sprayed on the cities walls and Jacko attacks the perpetrators, killing gay bashers in a mutually destructive series of conflicts. When Travis wins an important fight that will allow him to move to Las Vegas, he is told by everyone to ditch Jacko, but Jacko has just murdered to defend Travis' honor, complicating Travis' life even further. He confesses to Jacko that he is indeed is gay and the two face dire consequences from this revelation.

The script is heavily reliant on gross language and while the words constantly used are story appropriate, the language becomes overbearing. This is a film with a lot of violence, one that while many films about same sex attraction are becoming more popular with the public, manages to remind us that many sexually conflicted people continue to face odious odds in being who they are. Both Brian Austin Green and Bret Roberts give wholly credible performances as so the bulk of the supporting cast. The film is shot with a gritty edge (Scott Seidman has done a terrific Production Design) and Director Hayes never for a minute lets us forget the dire level of existence in which all of the characters live. COCK AND BULL STORY ranks with Hayes' own MIDNIGHT EXPRESS as a story that despite its grungy details needs to make the public aware of a life very dark. It is an unjustly underrated film. Grady Harp

A smart, violent film about manhood and machismo.

[Sarwin44 · 10 July 2003]

`Cock & Bull Story' is a film that does not pigeonhole neatly. Ostensibly a buddy film it goes deeper into the male bond, and its limits, than anything previously seen. This is a brave motion picture and to its credit, director Billy Hayes (the real-life protagonist of `Midnight Express'), does not opt for a neat and easy outcome nor does he waver from exploring the important message of this film.

When is a man not a man? If he can fight, get rowdy and drink beer, protect his mother from his violent father, be a good buddy, but maybe get aroused by violence in the boxing ring when he's in a clinch with another man; is he still a man?

You'll have to answer that by yourself. Because Hayes rightfully keeps the question unuttered as he skillfully builds the relationship between Jacko, the gay basher buddy of Travis, the up and coming amateur boxer.

At the center of the story is Brian A. Green as Jacko. This actor has totally reinvented himself since his time in `Beverly Hills 90210'. In `Cock & Bull Story' he proves himself to be a formidable actor. Smiling, always on the edge of violence, and ultimately applying test after test to determine if his best friend is gay, Green turns in a riveting performance.

Bret Roberts is Travis; a quiet, cute young guy whose timidity betrays his strength as a boxer. Set between Travis and Jacko is Greg Mullavey (yes, `Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman's' husband) in a beautifully etched performance as Pascoe, the boxing coach who sees Travis as his ticket to the big time, and Kay Lenz as Travis' mom. Both turn in outstanding performances.

At first the film seems like a gritty film noir about pulling one's self up by the bootstraps as Jacko sets up the trap for Travis. The confrontation that ultimately takes place explodes when Jacko beats three cross-town rivals to death for spraying graffiti calling him a `fag', then trudges off with blood on his hands for his final confrontation with Travis.

`Cock & Bull Story' is a film to be reckoned with, it has outstanding photography, an original score that drives the story forward, enough anti-gay violence for a skinhead convention, and an uncompromising attitude that refuses to feed its audience the Pablum of a happy ending or get caught in the trap of trying to answer questions that real life hasn't yet settled.

Don't miss `Cock & Bull Story'; it's a must see movie.

(Reviewed at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Castro Theater.)