Page 1 / 2 - Home

Oliver follows the archetypal detective film closely. There are the traditional red herrings, covert strangers with exculpatory evidence, subsequent and attempted murders. The curmudgeonly police Detective Bailey (Daryl Shuttleworth) who only grudgingly gives Strachey any latitude to skirt the law while Strachey's romantic partner, Timmy Callahan (Sebastian Spence) is as glamorous, witty and urbane as Nora Charles (of Nick and Nora). By cleaving to the murder mystery “formula” Oliver shows us it isn't the exclusive territory of the heterosexual world.

The strategy of inserting gay characters into a well-known and popular genre works surprisingly well here. Shock to the System is clearly an homage to film noir and is somewhat bleaker than its predecessor, Third Man Out. The screen is awash in a faint, icy-blue tinge that mutes the color palette, making the milieu somehow both posh and dreary.

All the aspects of noir detective yarns are present: the long shadows, sardonic exchanges, cynical worldview, dolls, louts, weasels and heavies. Strachey employs a quippy secretary named Kenny Kwan (Nelson Wong). But at the same time (and this is what gives Shock its punch) the movie rejects so many queer clichés.

Gay characters fill the foreground and aren't shy about using queer lingo. Strachey isn't played as promiscuous, effusive or withering. Understand he does not exist as a condemnation of these traits. He's just another guy who happens to be gay; a subtle iconoclast challenging the stereotypes.

Oliver sees Strachey as a fulfillment of the tough, skeptical, alienated, underhanded P.I. who nonetheless adheres to a code of ethics. And who just happens to be gay. In Shock to the System, virility and queer engagement are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they work in tandem.

Whether or not you believe eroticism and artistic substance are mutually exclusive, film is after all, a visual medium. The inclusion of male nudity and homoeroticism in Shock to the System is an absorbing, voluptuous experience, sometimes sly and playful, other times poignant. It's not forced and the camera doesn't linger, but it neither does it mask or turn away. It's very different from the abundant nudity to be found in Queer as Folk or the peek-a-boo treatment it gets in films like Alexander or Six Degrees of Separation.

To a certain degree, vivid depiction of sex on screen still carries the stigma of pornography, yet explicit heterosexual activity was coming into its own thirty or forty years ago in films like The Last Picture Show and Coming Home. The sex in Shock isn't just about catching up to the elucidation of those films, but also about not kowtowing to a homophobic, sin-obsessed patriarchy. Oliver dares to reveal that appalling truth that gay men have penises too.

There were times when I wished Ron Oliver had taken the next step, to advance the canon of Film Noir in the same way films like Blade Runner and The Last Seduction did. At times, I wished it transcended its roots and stood more on its own. Nonetheless, Shock to the System is an excellent film: confident, crisp, and fully realized. It's connection with here!TV may explain the occasional movie-of-the-week vibe, but its so far ahead of most queer cinema in its avant-garde sensibilities that it seems like an unexpected gift in the season of mindless blockbusters.

Shock to the System debuts in select cities nationwide and premieres on here!TV on Fri, August 4th. Check your local listings for times.

Page 1 / 2 - Home