All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Adapted from an off-Broadway play, the story has a dancer (STEPHEN BOGARDUS) inviting his friends to spend the summer at his secluded 19th Century mansion in upstate New York (with Canadian locations substituting for NY). The characters are stock gay men, the kind that exist in other plays like THE BOYS IN THE BAND--only this time none of them are quite interesting enough to care about.All of them, it seems, are living under the threat of AIDS, so we have reminders of LONGTIME COMPANION here too. Most of the performances are okay--nothing really subtle here--but JASON Alexander as the campiest one who hides his anxieties with an unflappable sense of humor seems a bit out of place when it comes to the serious scenes. JUSTIN KIRK does a nice job as a blind boy whose brief fling with handsome RANDY BECKER gets him into more trouble than he can handle. BECKER is the young Hispanic dancer who flaunts his sexuality at every turn.There's some casual frontal nudity for all the skinny dipping scenes, but the sentiment gets sticky whenever the serious aspects are touched. JOHN GLOVER, as twin brothers as different as night and day, gives the most professional performance.Not likely to appeal to a wide audience, it's got some good moments but the slim plot line wears thin after the first hour. The characters are all a bit too shallow to make a deep or lasting impression and there are too many mawkish and cloying moments in times of stress.

This was a wonderful character study - beautifully filmed, well acted, and nicely put together. Yet for all of that, in the end it lacked the depth - and more importantly, the tension - to pull off the story in a compelling way.The story, or perhaps more accurately, the situation is a group of eight gay men who gather on several occasions throughout the summer at the palatial of home of Gregory Mitchell (Stephen Bogardus) and his blind, and rather cloying, lover, Bobby Brahms (Justin Kirk), who live just outside of New York City. The guests include the hot-tempered, and occasionally politically incorrect, Perry Sellars (Stephen Spinella), and his long suffering lover, Arthur Pape (John Benjamin Hickey), who is occasionally embarrassed by Perry's outbursts; their campy friend Buzz Hauser (Jason Alexander), whose flamboyance hides his fears over his HIV positive status; the lugubrious John Jeckyll (John Glover), a man whose unexplained anger rules his every move; and John's companion for the first weekend Ramon Fornos (Randy Becker), a man who decides that he will have any man he wants regardless of the cost. Ramon's first conquest is Bobby which leads to tensions between Ramon, Bobby, and Gregory later in the summer. To further complicate matters, John's twin, James (again, John Glover), arrives from England midway through the summer. James, who is in somewhat more advanced stages of AIDS than Buzz, is as sweet as John is sour, which means that he fits in much better than his brother, much to John's chagrin. In addition, Buzz falls for James, which further complicates the already complicated dynamics of this group. As the summer progresses, each individual deals with his internal conflicts as well as his conflicts with the others, and at the end of the summer, they will resume their lives in the city.It's more a character study than a story, so it comes to a somewhat inconclusive ending, but along the way you do learn to care about all of the characters. Or at least you're supposed to. I never really cottoned to Ramon, and never developed much sympathy for John. Still, this movie does a good job of portraying this group as men who happen to be gay, rather than gay men. And there is a world of difference.The ensemble acting is excellent. All the performances are uniformly good. Alexander plays Buzz's flamboyance with surprising skill and tenderness. And Glover is masterful in giving the contrast between the two twins he plays. The rest of the cast does a fine job.The cinematography is gorgeous. The house and grounds are appealing, and you can almost feel the warmth of the summer as you watch.It's a very cerebral film, and for those who want more action and more story, it may seem a little dull. But it does present an excellent character study of many aspects of gay life, and as such, it is a rewarding experience.

Let's see, does this film miss any gay cliché? Hmmm ... The singing of show tunes? Check. And the references to Judy or Barbra or Liza or Madonna or Ethel Merman? Of course, check. The promiscuity? Check. The gratuitous nude scenes? Check...and check... and -- oooh!, full frontal nudity! -- that'd be a big check again. The use of the term "girlfriend" when referring to a gay man? Ditto for the phrase "bitch?" Check and double check. Plenty of mincing and prancing around? Yeah, right there. Did we overlook that a least one guy should be a for-hire boyfriend? Nope, gay equals prostitute, ya know. Excellent, it's all here. Plus, a bit of S&M role-playing, just to spice things up.Oops! Almost forgot the totally unnecessary display of crossdressing. Oh good, here it is -- and in ballet tutus, to boot. Gotta make it clear that to be gay is to be nelly. Oh, they were out of politically correct minorities, but will a Hispanic do? If not, they've got a blind homosexual and can toss in a couple of brave and only slightly self-pitying AIDS victims.LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! is one of those films where you may be at a loss to figure just why it exists. Eight gay men gather during three summer holiday weekends (Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day) at the New England country home of one of them, a successful choreographer. They bicker and banter, and fight and flirt; they bare the bodies while skinny dipping and bare their souls while trading cleverly rehearsed quips -- but, so what? As sort of a gay BIG CHILL or a homosexual FOUR SEASONS, the film really doesn't give any of them a chance to reveal themselves either politically or personally. There are a few pious monologues about love and life that are so generic as to be meaningless. If the point is to show that gays are "just like everybody else," then why do all the characters seem so generically superficial and tiresomely stereotypical. If there is meant to be a message to the story, then why doesn't the film get to it? There are some nice moments here and there as two characters share an honest or intimate moment, but too often the dialogue is arch and too theatrical to be real. Other times, the material shows its theatrical roots with an out-of-nowhere dramatic moment where you can just see a character moving to center stage to deliver his big, important monologue in the spotlight. By the time you get to the end, where each character, in voice-over, reveals the circumstances of their way-in-the-distance death -- while dancing around in tutus, no less -- you just want to scream at the filmmakers. Here's a scene that totally trivialized these characters, showing them to truly be nothing but prancing fairies, yet begs you to see into the depths of their souls and weep for the fragility of their lives. The result is totally annoying, if not absolutely insulting. If it were not for the fact that many involved in the film are openly gay, you could just swear the film was trying purposely to be smugly homophobic.And you can't help but to groan at how needlessly self-important the material takes itself, even as it wallows in self-mockery. Too much of this is just pretentious, not the least of which is the three exclamation points in the title that just scream of announcing something of epic proportions; a false promise for a film with really very little to say.Three words: Lousy! Vacuous! Condescending!

A very powerful and moving story, particular the relationship between Buzz and James; both dying of AIDS and both in love.Very well acted and incredibly moving, especially when happy-go-lucky musical loving Buzz begins to break and confesses how he really sees things.It may not be real life, but you could believe that these characters exist. The script is good, as are most scripts based on plays AND adapted by the original writer. I would be very inspired to actually see this performed."I am sick and tired of straight people, there are just too many of them. I was in a bank the other day, they were everywhere writing cheques, two of them were applying for a morgage, it was disgusting."