Sugar (2004)

So much average

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie was like a horrible documentary about drugs and prostitution. Cliff and Butch's relationship was weird and never fully explained. When I started watching this movie, I expected a gay romance and what I got was a really weird fetish porn film. What I did like about it was the acting, all the actors were believable and just great, especially Haylee. I also liked the ending, it was like it was from a different movie, everything about it was in contrast of the whole movie. I suppose that's why I liked it.The summary of the movie does in no way tell the audience what will happen, because Cliff and Butch don't really hook up. The summary should be: "A film about the strong feelings that develop between two guys and how one of them drags the other into the world of drugs and prostitution"Even though I didn't like the movie, I did like the subject. I don't have any experience with prostitution, but I think it shed some real light on it. It isn't glamour or beautiful people having sex. It's weird fetishes and people that no-one else wants to have sex with. I might have liked this movie a lot more if I had been looking for a movie with a real take on prostitution and drugs, I would have liked this movie, no doubt, but unfortunately I was looking for a romance.

Just turned 18 young Cliff goes downtown and meets hustler Butch and falls for him. Butch is pretty f**ked up. As an addict his spiral downwards spins off pretty quick, I must add to my comfort and thankfully as the last little snatch of plausibility this film had to offer. Being drawn from stories by Bruce LaBruce one knew what to expect. Thank God his hip hypocrisy when it comes to his own direction was passed to other hands with visible improvement. Though this is not enough.Brendan Fehr's portrait of Butch is good acting, with one misfire I think. A bit too much accent on the likable-because-good-underneath guy. This makes the film implausible, for it steals the comic moments, and gives hints, although not making something work out, either as morality lesson, or letting it be just plainly cynical. Andre Noble's twit undercurrent was spot on, though I am not so sure about his somewhat raging blandness at the end. But this is more the script's blandness.I liked the cinematography, as if it was coming from an early nineties New Queer Cinema feature. But as another reviewer mentions, looking so terrible, although obviously intentional, was unwise, too.Little sis' was the least narcissistic of all people in the film. This does not come off as poignant, but as detrimentally cynical.As most things in the film, betting on weirdness for its own sake. (The scene in the limo, with all the boys getting naked, almost had something of "Shortbus"'s sheen.) There was one properly chilling moment: the two guys at the pool being almost comically terifying.The detail of the fake black nail on Butch's right hand, ah! This is what Bruce LaBruce's punk grit comes down to: have a black nail just to get high.

Yeah, the spoilers are coming...Look, this movie actually had me buying it most of the way through. Butch came across as a sympathetic character and Cliff's naivety made it all the more painful when Butch turned on him. Still, that made sense - Butch doesn't understand a relationship based upon love and doesn't see why turning Cliff into another trick is that big of a deal. His self-destructive spiral afterwards was pretty damn well done, too.What KILLED it for me was after Butch died. Cliff's first boyfriend has just died and within hours of the funeral he aggressively hits on another man and gives him oral in a bathroom? Huh? Look, somebody may justify this by stating "Maybe you just don't get gay culture" or by pointing out that "Sugar" refers to all sorts of addictions and maybe Cliff's addiction is sex. But when you take your most sympathetic, deepest character (Butch) and kill him off and then have the next best character in the movie do something to so completely disrespect him, well, the movie loses points in my book.Even if they had just ended with Cliff in cafe making eye contact with the other guy, it would have been a better end than this. A movie can only be so nihilistic before it loses you, and "Sugar" lost me completely in the last five minutes.And did anybody notice he pretty much abandoned his sister downtown? Just saying.

When leading "Sugar" Actor Andre Noble expired shortly after filming from ingesting that toxic Canadian flower, he joined a long line of thespians who passed away during or immediately after a film project.These include Massimo Troisi ("Il Postino) Robert Ryan ("The Iceman Cometh") Brandon Lee ("The Crow") Clark Gable ("The Misfits") and River Phoenix ("My Own Private Idaho") to name but a scant few.Whatever may have been the circumstances of these cases, it reminds one of the often precarious nature of total artistic commitment.When viewing "Sugar," evidence is of actors giving their all to their roles, especially Mr. Noble as the angst teen and Brendan Fehr as the seasoned hustler. It's certainly no fault of theirs that "Sugar" rather fails to deeply move most viewers.Trouble seems to be mostly in a script that doesn't seem to provide much depth into the characters' psyches, backgrounds, or relationships. One observes surface action, but seldom does one empathetically feel for these people.John Palmer's direction may likewise be termed "unremarkable," though it's evident that everyone's trying. It seems the makers got caught up in the dirt and decay of circumstances, without addressing the personal pathos and ultimate destiny of their subjects.Like young Lee and Phoenix, talented Noble's legacy must rest primarily on this film, and for that reason alone, "Sugar" becomes significant.