Employing a thoughtful, probing tone, the screenplay (by Philip Pierce and Q. Allan Brocka, who also directs) is a cerebral blend of insight, wit and raunchy self-awareness. As a hustler who disapproves of promiscuity and keeps a statue of the Virgin Mary in his closet because "she looks like she's demanding a child-support check from God," X may be hypocritical and irreverent, but he's never illogical. He's a philosopher-queen.
In a role that could easily have slipped into bitchy smugness, Mr. Magyar gives the character a self-deprecating charm that's enormously appealing. X has no objection to love; it's just that what he views as the obsessions of gay culture — grooming, cruising, working out — exhaust him, and he attacks them with an anthropologist's eye and a comedian's tongue. "Try to keep up," he tells us at the beginning of the movie. It's very good advice.
WITH: Patrick Bauchau (Gregory Talbot), Derek Magyar (X), Darryl Stephens (Andrew) and Jonathon Trent (Joey).
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