In Shock to the System: A Donald Strachey Mystery, Chad Allen plays Strachey, the private dick who is a bit of a dick himself. He parks his car on a handicap spot when the parking lot is wide open; he gives his assistant a hard time about everything; but, he is a smoking hot homo who has no problem flaunting it to the world.
This is the second movie adapting Richard Stevenson's Donald Strachey mystery novels into film -- the first one was Third Man Out (2005). In Shock to the System, our gay dick goes undercover at an ex-gay institution in order to investigate the death of a client. Chad hotly handles every situation in which another guy is involved (he is one of those close-talkers, well, at least when it comes to talking to the many studs being investigated).
Hotness abounds. There is frontal nudity (from the extra you can see in the middle of the pic on the right) and many hot scenes: most of the men in the movie are smoking hot. And they are mostly much taller than Chad Allen. Usually, they use all sorts of tricks to even the heights of the main characters, specially when the main character plays a tough guy (did movie makers ever let you notice that Tom Cruise is only, like, 4 feet tall?) So, that was nice, Chad probably doesn't need to compensate. And that actually worked for me, it goes to show that you can have a gay, short, dick who can deliver. Very much so.
A problem I had with the movie is that I didn't really buy the relationship between Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence, who plays his husband (Chad Allen says they are married but the husband refers to him at one point as his partner, but whatever). Their kisses are kinda cold, fast, barely touching lips. That was a bit awkward; both are hot guys but there was just no chemistry between them.
Even with the few problems the movie has, you should absolutely not miss this one. A hot gay private dick? I'm all for it. The movie is out on DVD. Third Man Out (2005), also out on DVD, will soon to be reviewed here.
I just watched both DVd's.. and I really liked them. The relationship between Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence is really well done.. not to mention how hot they both are.
Posted by: Tom | Mar 15, 2007 at 01:28 AM
Agreed ;-)
Posted by: Queer Beacon | Mar 12, 2007 at 04:00 PM
I watched this last night on DVD and was pleasantly surprised. The last Here! original I watched was Dante's Cove. While I love DC, at times it feels like little more than a soft porn music video. By contrast, this flick strikes a nice balance between flesh and substance. Nice work from Here!
Posted by: Brett | Mar 11, 2007 at 08:00 PM