This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
Smith is a 18 year old college student who lives in a dorm with his straight room-mate Thor, on whom he totally has a crush on. His all time best friend is Stella, who we find out is lesbian. Smith has been having this weird dream for a week. The mysterious dream has people in it that are extremely vivid that he's never met and it instantly gets our minds to spinning as to what the hell is going on. It gets weirder from there. At a party Smith meets two of those girls whom he saw in the dream. One of them turns out to be Stella's new girlfriend and the other one is just some random girl. Smith also meets London, who ends up being his first sexual experience with a girl. Smith and London start becoming friends and the films keep getting weirder. Both Stella and Smith keep getting these weird hallucinations. Stella is totally weird out by her girlfriend whom she thinks has some special psychic powers. Smith continues to have visions which now involve men in masks trying to get him or something. In between Smith has his birthday and London treats him to a 3some with Thor's best friend. Smith also has a brief encounter with a guy on a nude beach. All this while, both him and Stella are trying to figure out what the reality is. The truth slowly starts to unfold when Smith turns 19. He finds out a website where he sees and reads about this underground cult, which is headed by his supposedly dead father and that now everyone is out to get Smith to be the new leader because the world is gonna come to an end. Last 15 minutes of the film, most secrets are revealed about all the people in Smith's life and what do they have to do with this whole cult and underground order or whatever.
Made at very high production values, the film is very very engaging because you are yourself intrigued by all thats happening in and around Smith, but by the time the movie is in final moments, it is such a huge letdown. I can't believe that the writers thought the audiences will buy this bullshit. When you have created such suspenses, drama and thrill, you should always back it up with substance but this was clearly missing. The whole explanation, nuclear weapons and the true identity of everyone around Smith was a little too much and too dumb. C'mmon as an audience we deserve better. The acting was exceptionally well fem pretty much everyone. It looked like a very polished campus drama for a long time and in fact very well done. Alas! the climax ruins it all. But in all fairness, the thrill as well could have been done so cheaply and badly. It was so easy to do all that was shown in this film as cheap thrills but thankfully the director did not resort to that.
A decent movie with some genuine moments and then it goes into a strange transformation of ridiculousness and the paranormal. (5.5/10)
Comments