2022 Entry #007 01-28-22 “200 American” is a 2003 romantic dramedy film which was written and directed by Richard LeMay (director of “Naked as We Came”, “Whirlwind” and producer of “Children of God”). The plot mainly focuses on the increasingly complicated romantic & sexual entanglements of a gay NYC CEO named Conrad (Matt Walton) and Ian / Tyler (Sean Matic), an Aussie hustler.
I purchased this title around the time it was originally released to DVD; I’d never seen it before but I’d started collecting LGBTQ+ DVDs by that point and I’d seen it in a TLA Video catalog. I watched it once. I remembered that the actors were attractive but that the movie looked like it had been recorded on video; it looked cheap, but that I had mostly enjoyed it…despite the acting being hit or (mostly) miss. I also remembered (SPOILER) that the seemingly gay-for-pay hustler came out in the course of the film, which I liked. The only thing that really changed for me this time around, despite me not having remembered most of the film, is that having moved to NYC in 2012, I now recognized a lot of the scenery in a first hand way. Also, for a movie that is focused on gay sex and the relationships that are centered on it, there’s a surprising lack of sex or nudity in the film. I don’t think I cared the first time I saw it, but this time I found it odd, dishonest and slightly frustrating. In the film’s favor…I will offer some light praise: I did occasionally find glimmers of potential, though they were fleeting, and late in the film, when I felt I’d really just like the movie to be over, a dumb joke made me laugh out loud for a good 30 seconds.
I’ve seen LeMay’s “Naked as We Came” and I remember enjoying it much more than this but I will have to revisit it as part of this LGBTQ+ viewing project. I also watched “Children of God” last year, which I loved, and I own a copy of “Whirlwind”, though I’ve never seen it. And though I didn’t hate this film, I can’t really recommend it either. I’d urge anyone interested in Lemay’s work to try the other titles I listed instead.
