Review: "Ice Blues" brings gay couple front and center

What’s this? Another Donald Strachey movie so soon? Ice Blues, the fourth entry in here! Television’s series of movies about a gay detective, debuts on the pay cable channel on Friday, September 5^th.

But just two months ago saw the release of On the Other Hand, Death, the series’ third entry. The first three movies in the series, which also includes Third Man Out (2005) and Shock to the System (2006), came at least a year apart. Might here! TV be experimenting with some sort of Back to the Future or Lord of the Rings-type simultaneous filming schedule, where multiple entries in a series are filmed at the same time?

However they’re produced, and however often they come, these movies, based on the novels by Richard Stevenson, are always welcome in my book.

Chad Allen as Donald Strachey

Ice Blues isn’t as good as On the Other Hand, Death, the series stand-out so far. But Ice Blues  is solid enough and definitely worth watching.

here! TV has (rightly) been making a big deal about the fact that the lead in this breakthrough series, played by out actor Chad Allen, is a gay man in a healthy (and monogamous) relationship.

In Ice Blues, Strachey’s relationship with his partner Timmy (Sebastian Spence) is finally front and center. But all is not well in this gay household. “We can’t make dinner plans with our friends, I don’t remember the last time we went out to movie,” Timmy complains, fretting about Donald’s late nights at the detective agency. “And it’s dangerous. Some nights I can’t sleep. I worry there’s someone out there bashing your brains in.”

Then Timmy’s pet charity, a local youth center, is threatened with closure over a lack of funds. Late one night in a parking garage in darkened parking garage, a mysterious figure gives Timmy a three million dollar donation.

But this donation comes with some serious strings attached. Soon someone is trying to kill Tommy. When the thugs start appearing and bodies start turning up, Timmy “hires” Donald to find out who the money really belongs to.

Before long, Donald and Timmy are both drawn into a web of intrigue involving theft, murder, long-buried family secrets, and a child pornography ring. Meanwhile, Timmy himself gets a strong taste of the adrenaline rush that comes from being in the thick of things. “It’s amazing what’ll happen when your body wants to stay alive,” Donald tells him.

Sebastian Spence (left) & Allen

The best part of the movie is the joy of seeing these two attractive men being affectionate and romantic with each other. The oh-so-macho mystery genre has been notoriously homophobic over the years, with a surprising number of murderers turning out to have killed for the “shocking twist” of being gay and in love with another male character. So it’s doubly refreshing to see this genre reclaimed for us gay folks. Just the unremarked-upon fact that it’s a gay man in the lead makes this detective series every bit as revolutionary as here! claims it is.

As before, the movie has some nice moments of humor, mostly involving Donald’s put-upon assistant Kenny (Nelson Wong), who is taking a night class for aspiring detectives that, naturally, contradicts everything Donald does. Meanwhile, Sebastian Spence’s Timmy, who I’ve found a little too fussy in previous entries, finds the humor in his character’s transformation from prissy homebody to gun-wielding he-man (well, mostly).