Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
David is a famous artist who finds himself in a artist block. To get more inspired, he decides that he needs to get a job and since he has waiting experience, he decide to join a not so famous diner, so that no one recognizes him. The diner is owned by Matt and Violet, a loving couple. The 3 of them become friends and are having a good time, until David starts having feelings for Matt. Surprisingly, Matt looks in David a friend, whom he can hang out with. One day when David shows Matt his painting of Matt, he can't hold back anymore and gives himself to David. They have pure passion. But things start becoming awkward at diner and so David quits. Matt misses him and visits him again and then they start having an affair, while Violet is totally clueless. On a parallel side, we also see Shannon, David's transgendered friend who lives with him and wants to get a sex change operation but it keeps getting postponed because of her HIV status. Things keep worsening with her. She ends up in hospital really bad and finally decides that she can't take it anymore and would like to end her life. When another friend of David's sees David and Matt together, she is utterly shocked and threatens to tell Violet about everything. Eventually when David is about to do his portraits exhibition about Matt, Matt comes clean to his wife, who throws him out of the house. The film ends with all 3 principal characters being left alone to deal the realities of life.
Interestingly the film has lot of reference to Superman, which I found oddly fascinating considering the target audience was primary gay. I have to point out here that every single acorn in this film does a brilliant job. My fav scene is when Matt calls David as buddy and he exclaims to Violet that "Did you hear that your husband just called me buddy. You know I am a fag, right?" The scene was fantastic and it sort of establishes the character that David is. The guy Matt was very believable as the loving husband, who for some reason could not help himself falling in love with another man while loving his wife equally strong. I for once was never bored in the film and was curious to see what would happen next. I don't think the side story of the transgendered girl was a drag to the film. The film very subtly focusses on crisis and epidemic that AIDS and HIV is bringing. Sure the film doesn't have a happy ending but then at least it is more realistic and believable.
I liked it a lot and I think most people would. (7/10)
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