GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Flexing with Monty Breaking Glass
Films, Director/Screenplay Starring: Unrated, 90 minutes |
Narcissus
On Steroids
Flexing With Monty, a film that is advertised as having been "14 years in the making," is quite possibly one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. I can't remember the last time I had this many WTF moments in one film. O Fantasma maybe? Most of it is weird in a good way but I think the ending short circuited the logic center of my brain and the less that's said about its third act the better. |
 Written
and directed by John Albo, Flexing With Monty
is a story of sibling rivalry as if scripted by Tennessee
Williams and David Lynch wih a touch of Clive Barker. Monty (Trevor
Goddard) is the aggressively macho older brother who spends all of his time
exercising. All of his time exercising. He is a gym teacher who
feels that his students could use some quality time in the Marines or on
a chain gang. When he isn't pumping iron, he admires himself in the mirror
and has sex with blow-up dolls while a slideshow of his beefcake poses is
projected over the bed. He is Narcissus on testosterone. Bertin (Rudi Davis)
is 17, plays the piano and keeps a "rare exotic animal" - actually a masturbating
pygmy - in a cage in his bedroom. (Don't ask.) Bertin enjoys teasing his
egomaniac older brother. "You gotta get those pecs hard and firm,"
he says, mockingly, "So hard you can strike a match on them!" |
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 Monty
is also a bigot of the first order and there is a very ugly scene in which
he pretends he's a hustler and then beats up his john. He blames all the
world's woes on "faggots and feminists" and complains about anything that
goes against what he feels to be "the natural order of things." This includes
taking pills that would sweeten his wind because farts are supposed
to stink. I'm not sure how sex with blowup dolls fits into this philosophy
but Monty isn't the brightest bulb on the planet. This is why so much of
the first half is so funny; Monty is such a lunkhead that he almost becomes
lovable. He seems to love his brother but, being such a control freak, he
is angered when Bertin mentions getting his own place when he graduates
high school. He's also evasive whenever Bertin asks about the mother he
never met. Monty also shows a feminine side now and then; little things
like wearing a showercap so his hair doesn't get wet when he showers. When
Bertin cooks him a chicken pie in which he used all the gizzards, Monty
remarks that it's good for the skin tone. |
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 Flexing
With Monty's
plot isn't really gay, but it is one of the most homoerotic films I have
ever seen. Monty's muscles are on display for most of the film's running
length and his spandex shorts appear to be spray-painted on. There is a
lot of horseplay between the brothers, some of it almost sexual. Monty tells
Bertin that he watched him masturbate one night and then sat down on the
bed and struggled against the urge to touch him. (What was that again about
the natural order of things?) This isn't the only instance of implied incest;
both have dreams about the grandmother who raised them. Bertin's involves
a red scarf across her bared breasts while Monty dreams of the back rubs
and full body massages she gave him. Phallic symbols abound. A banana dominates
the frame when Bertin mixes Monty a protein shake. |
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 As
if the film wasn't strange enough already, the second half is propelled
into another dimension when a nun rings their doorbell. The nun, played
by Sally Kirkland, thinks
Monty is Bertin's father. Her name is Lilith. That is also the name of a
hooker who visits Monty and tells him the legend of Adam's first wife, Lilith
Fair, and how she refused to obey her husband (Monty wigs out and calls
her a feminist). The nun is clearly aroused by Monty. She notes that he
is a nice speciman. "This bicep is pregnant with power," Monty boasts and
strikes a pose. "And it has a soul. A fleshy soul. Would you like
to squeeze my fleshy soul?" |
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 Yes,
this film is weird. But there are different degrees of weird. Films like
Flexing With Monty are difficult
to write about. I loved the first half but found its third act to be absolute
nonsense. I recently watched the David Cronenberg adaptation of Burrough's
Naked Lunch again. This is another film that is weirdness personified,
but it makes sense (at least on a repeat viewing) until it gets to the conclusion.
The ending is so wrong but I can't dismiss the rest of it just because
of its last minutes. I feel that way about Flexing
With Monty too. Great first hour but then... Yikes!!
Discussing what happens would mean divulging a major plot twist and the
campy last act would sound even more inane if I tried to describe it. This
is profoundly disappointing because I love offbeat comedy and this one was
so refreshingly different. Monty's
first half was off the wall in a Harold and Maude or Withnail
and I sort of way, and had all the makings of a new cult classic. |
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Sally Kirkland
also appears in: |
They
live together in a large warehouse in what almost appears to be a master
/ slave relationship. Monty barks orders and Bertin responds with a Heil
Hitler salute. A huge industrial space is taken up by Monty's dungeon-like
gym. It resembles H.R. Giger's drawings for Alien. He would need
a space this big just to house his ego. His workout equipment includes
a treadmill that looks like a cross between a hamster wheel and one of
those round tumblers used in Bingo games. There are metal bars from which
he swings like an ape when he isn't doing pull-ups. There is something
almost subhuman about him. But this neanderthal also likes to be flattered;
his body is beautiful and he knows it.
As
mentioned earlier, Flexing With Monty
took 14 years to make. They must have completed most of the principal
photography when it was started in 1994 because the actors look the same
throughout. Apparently funding kept running out; the film also endured
the death of a producer and its star. Trevor Goddard, also known for roles
in Mortal Kombat and TV's Jag, died before he got to see
Monty, one of his earliest
screen credits, released to the public. Flexing
With Monty has its admirers; the DVD box includes rave
quotes from Danny DeVito and