Surprisingly incoherent and boring

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

For a gay themed movie, this is extremely polished and well-done; perfect acting, great editing, compelling sound-track and most of all an excellent script with on-point dialogue. Given my review is "late in the game" I won't bother with a synopsis. I will say that for a plot of the day in the life of a male prostitute, this absolutely gave the viewer something extraordinary and atypical of the genre (because yes...it's been done before, as admitted in the film itself with the references to "My Own Private Idaho"). There are many layers to this film and in fact to the lead character, as we find out through his acting AND the dialogue that he indeed takes on the personas of the people he is about to have sex with (and he could only accomplish this if he were a very polished actor...which he definitely appears to be). This film delves into the human psyche and asks the question if we are ALL pretending/trying to be someone we are not/putting on a show for others. A very well done and IMHO underrated film.

I almost turned this off as it was a little slow in the beginning. I actually switched it with another DVD I had rented and went back to it , and I'm glad that I did. Often films in this genre fall into the terrible trap of many 'gay' movies (let's find an example to get the clothes off of the hot guy), this actually turned out to be a great example of independent film of any genre. It took a severely dark turn in the scene with the Russian client, and from there I was hooked. I could tell the director had something to say here. The cast is well chosen and seasoned enough to bring a good game to the film. Often a smaller film has to cast actors who don't have enough experience to flesh out a real character, but these guys are fine. I'm often leery of a film 'written and directed' by the same person because something usually suffers. It's usually a great script that looks like it was shot on a camera phone, or it's filled with great artistic shots and angles full of plodding delivery of a lame script, but Graham is adept at both here. I almost returned it unwatched, but am glad I went back to it.

The only flaw in the movie "Strapped" is its title, which elicits a gay porno more than the sweet emotional narrative it actually is. Yes, the story of a man allegorically making his way through life and finding himself in the end has been done before, but the framework of this story is beautifully constructed, and beautifully polished. It's unfortunate that this film is "strapped" with the classification of gay genre, and many straights will see it only as a disgusting homo erotic porn flick, when in actuality it is one of the better, if not the best, journey of life allegories I have ever seen. Unlike most straight guys, I am not bothered by gay sex. This allows me to transfer the emotions of the film into my own heterosexual domain, and allows me to see that love is love, and in a perfect world it wouldn't matter who you loved, nor would anyone mind who you loved. This movie touched me, and where some see ambiguity (an oft repeated criticism of the film), I see a precious vagueness which is the crux of human existence. "Strapped" is worth the visit, just like the apartment building, and life in general, is worth the visit. If the goal of the producers was for the audience to experience love, the mission was accomplished.

The actor Ben Bonefant is certifiably the first male porn actor who has star quality and can do the crossover into straight film even though he makes no attempt to be anything but queer and performs most of the usual acts with professionalism. All this he does with style, good use of his screen presence, much better than his straight lookalike, Mr.Demi Moore.....Ashton. Actually, he has star quality where Ashton has leftovers. The story is unique and very American and not a rifpoff of some French mec film, or a polite or violent Brit gang rape type plot.This is one of the best films I have seen this year simply because it is good. It is also original..........something one does not hear much. And, in the middle of all this, we have Ben....a real charmer who seems to like his job and earns it by sheer quantity. He has humor, honesty and that kind of smirk only real stars own and which is totally their own. I would bet on him to cross over to straight films. Did I mention that he is sexy and not perfect? He is like a gay Eric Bana. Bana was much sexier early on in his career.Now, he is just too polished. He had better drop his drawers and be well hung.