Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely Fantastic

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

After ten minutes, this movie devolves into the most excruciatingly slow paced film since The Shining. It's just so slow it's painful.Another review noted that the film seems to reinforce negative stereotypes in the gay community. They were right. Everything that the gay community is condemned for is thrown in the viewer's face, and then some. With the slow pacing, you're given a lot of character development but because the scenes just drag on, you lose track of these things quickly.It's trying to make a point, except it all gets lost in-you guessed it- the pacing. If that's your thing, go for it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

This movie tells the story of what happens one week to a number of gay men in and around Clapham Junction, a well-known gay cruising area in London.The characters include various gay men who visit the park, including a gay couple, two or three closeted married men, a teenage musician, an amoral park lothario, a basher and his victims. The movie captures the excitement and danger of park cruising, but without showing the eroticism. Gay bashing is a major part of the plot.In one narrative, we follow sexy but tortured Tim, a suspected pedophile, as he is seduced by 14-year-old Theo. There is no doubt who is the aggressor. Tim, who apparently likes them young, is helpless. (I agree with the other reviewers that this scene is powerful and erotically charged. However, it would have been more disturbingly realistic if the actor playing Theo actually did look 14. He looks more like 19. This robbed the scene of its shock value.) However, in the end, Tim must face the acidic wrath of a demented mother who knows nothing about her son, and perhaps does not wish to.All these characters are neatly linked, and not just by the geography.The final scene shows the musician's smashed violin, complete with sad music. I get it. Clapham Junction is not a happy place. Cruising in a park is double plus ungood, and not just because of the violence. Gay men are victims. Resist temptation at all costs. The picture this movie paints is a dark one. A stereotypical one. We are living in a world of hysterical mothers, gay bashers lurking in the bushes, and desperate gay men with unacceptable urges.Yes, these are stories that should be told, I suppose, but...surely there are also a few happy gay stories in and around Clapham Junction? The movie feeds on the stereotype of gay men as unhappy creatures leading pathetic lives. Sorry, but it's not realistic, is it?

Having lived in London and going there often now than I am older, I do see the similarities of how the "old days" of homophobia are once again a lot more apparent with bashings happening mostly from different groups. I have to laugh at the reviewer from Berkely (who just happens to rent mostly gay or muscle movies) because he condemns the lack of story and the insight this film exposes of how regressive the behavior of the so called "enlightened" middle class members as this well acted cast are so subtly afraid and fearing the general violence returning to their lives.No longer does one believe that legalization of the life style as holding up and it is artfully revealed at the dinner party. Joan Rivers says in her act "that all Brits are gay and YOU know it" because good manners and breeding are no longer part of the old ways and the way the crazed mother behaved at the dinner party and the beating occurs to the most attractive and harmless young man in what is a posh area of the city. The scene of the young man with the closeted and terrified handsome older neighbor is something most gays have to go through at some time, but has never been so truthfully filmed with the testosterone overwhelming the innocent while blending into yet another story of verbalizing the increasing homophobia. This is really well directed and the message is not a shallow story, but when one sees the gangs of thousands of immigrants who have changed Europe, the Joan Rivers joke all of a sudden becomes kind of a reality because there is not the refinement and control of behavior where almost every gay, closeted or flamboyant gay was accepted and free to "carry on".The war and "don't ask, don't tell" is causing a lot of grief for gays and it is just as apparent in the states, but not as finely drawn as this film presents unspoken truths. Those who make fun of it, would seem to me to be gay or closeted themselves and express critics in their "straight" reviews. Surely everyone rented the film because of their interest in gay film and not about a very scary statement the director intended. It is one of the best gay themed films which has been released for other reasons than to titillate and look for nude men and gay sex which is typical of most gay themed films.CLAPHAM JUNCTION is artfully done and horrendously sad along with the rest of what is happening around the world.I doubt if anyone wasn't somehow moved or bothered by this film.

A truly brilliant piece of work. The writing is creative, astute and exceptionally well crafted. The direction creates exactly the right mood for the story and brings out the best in the writing and the acting. The actors play each character so perfectly right from the beginning that you truly believe them - exactly what should happen! The story is not for the faint hearted and though explicit, it is never gratuitous. The story is written to challenge you and it does so superbly. Whether you like the content or not, you can't say it isn't a good piece of work. It makes you think and it makes you feel - and you can't ask for more than that.