Poster Boy

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

A conservative politician who believes he can count on his family for support discovers his son is not the man he thought he was in this drama. Jack Kray (Michael Lerner) is a United States senator from the South whose right-wing views have earned him the nickname "the Nazi from North Carolina." Jack is running for reelection and is looking for support wherever he can get it; told he needs to increase his appeal with younger voters, Jack tries to persuade his son Henry (Matt Newton), a college student, to make a few campaign stops with him. While Jack's wife (and Henry's mom), Eunice (Karen Allen), tries to convince her husband this isn't a good idea, Jack refuses to take no for an answer from Henry. But there's something Jack doesn't know about his son -- Henry is gay, and while he only shares this secret with a small handful of trusted friends and lovers, he can't bring himself to support his father's anti-gay "family values" platform. However, Henry's sexual preference may not stay a secret for long -- Henry has hooked up with Anthony (Jack Noseworthy), a student political activist who wants a long-term relationship with Henry and refuses to play coy about it, while some of Henry's other partners have come forward about his homosexuality. Poster Boy was originally announced as a project for director Herbert Ross, who died before the film went into production; Douglas Keeve took over as director, but resigned before shooting was completed, so editor Zac Tucker completed the movie and received sole screen credit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Matt Newton - Henry Kray
       Karen Allen - Eunice Kray
       Michael Lerner - Jack Kray
       Jack Noseworthy - Anthony
       Valerie Geffner - Izzie
       Ian Reed Kesler - Skip Franklin
       Steve Sheffler - Journalist
       Neal Huff - Marcus
       Austin Lysy - Parker

• Director:

  Zak Tucker

• Producer:

  Dolly Hall, Rebecca Chaiklin, Stanley Buchtal, Jeff Campagna

• Screenwriter:

  Trevor Ristow, Ryan Shiraki, Lecia Rosenthal

• Cinematographer:

  Wolfgang Held

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Jim Black

• Composer (Music Score):

  Mark Garcia

• Editor:

  Pamela Scott Arnold, Zak Tucker

• Production Designer:

  Doug Hall

• Art Director:

  Miguel A. Alvarez

• Co-producer:

  Robyn Knoll

• Costume Designer:

  Doug Hall

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Dan Ferat

• First Assistant Director:

  Julie W. Noll

• Casting:

  Kerry Barden, Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith

• Line Producer:

  Caroline Jaczko

REVIEW:

• Completed on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, Zak Tucker's Poster Boy is nothing if not timely. Aside from topicality and good intentions, the film is reasonably engaging and well acted. But it's also more than a little bit overwrought. The problems start with the character of the conservative Southern senator, Jack Kray (Michael Lerner). Lerner brings a little depth to the characterization, but Jack is essentially written as an ogre, and the filmmakers would have benefited, both in terms of audience involvement and their thematic arguments, by making him more recognizably human. There's not a single attractive thing about the man, which makes his gay son Henry's (Matt Newton) conflict with him more predictably transparent and less interesting. Meanwhile, there's a surfeit of subplots going on, of varying plausibility. Valerie Geffner does a fine job as Izzie, and has a surprisingly touching interaction with the senator's wife, Eunice (Karen Allen, somehow making this over-the-top aging Southern belle appealing), but was it necessary to give her AIDS, an antidepressant addiction, and a ludicrous, underdeveloped backstory involving a bisexual former lover? Jack Noseworthy is also very good, but his character arc suffers from similar needless complications. The film's immediacy and its charming cast allow it to overcome these flaws to some degree, and a framing device, which at first seems yet another pointless complication, turns out to add a welcome and surprising bit of nuance to the tale. Poster Boy may go a bit astray, but it is still a solid indie effort. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi