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...
The primary events happens between 4 close gay friends over an evening and our primary man is Juan, who is also the host of the party. He is obliged to attend a family event with a boyfriend. "I imagine that you will come accompanied" (“Me Imagino Que Vendrás Acompañado” thus the abbreviation MIQVA) says his mother, who has accepted him being homosexual but cannot accept that her son is single. This happens every time and all his friends have already exhausted pretending to be his boyfriend. In the urge to avoid problems and prejudices, he hires an escort as a companion, and gather his friends to give them the news and ask their advice. The evenings goes from Juan telling his friends about his decision and their reactions waiting for the escort to arrive and judge him. They also spend time remembering good old days, full of sex, companionship etc. Each of the friend has his own story where one is just been proposed by his bf but fears monogamy; second one just wants to be famous and successful and the third one mocks love but secretly thinks otherwise. The series ends up with all of them getting drunk and Juan and a friend ending up having sex. They all ultimately decide that the four of them should go as a family and forget this whole boyfriend business.
Whats not very clear at the end os whether the sex between the two guys is purely physical or there is more cooking between the two. It seems it was purely physical and they both had been wanting to do it for a while but couldn’t risk hurting friendship. There are good funny moments and each character gets ample opportunity to throw some witty one-liners; especially when they compare how things used to happen in “good old days” vs with current generation. Although a lot of times I felt that the acting was a little over the top and the jokes forced; I have a feeling this could be a successful theatre act. But the truth is that making this as a web-series definitely increases its reach to the target viewers. All the four guys look good and make for a nice eye-tonic.
This could have been better, but at least its a platform that is slowly allowing me to get back in the groove. (5/10)
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