Themes: Rise and Fall Stories, Sexual Awakening, Prostitutes
Main Cast: Tony Ward, Bruce LaBruce
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 80 minutes
Plot
Bruce LaBruce produced, co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in this satiric black sex comedy about gay hustlers and their customers in Santa Monica, California. Monti Ward (Tony Ward), a male prostitute, is dead, floating face down in a Jacuzzi as the story begins, and in voice over, Monti describes the circumstances that led him to this cruel fate. Jurgen Anger (Bruce LaBruce), a writer from Europe, is in California researching a book on prostitution, and when he sees Monti, he decides that this is the man he wants to be his tour guide. Jurgen offers Monti $1,000 to tell him stories about "work" (which is more profitable and less taxing than what most of his clients put him through), and Monti agrees. However, Monti is no male whore with a heart of gold; earlier the same day, he stole a car and ran over the foot of Eigil Vesti (Kevin P. Scott), another hustler (though after his foot has to be taken off, Eigil discovers a lucrative sideline working with amputation fetishists). As Monti regales Jurgen with tales about johns who like knives, duct tape, or any number of other strange and disgusting things, the writer finds himself developing a serious crush on his hustler. Leading man Tony Ward previously worked as a model and appeared in several videos with Madonna, including "Justify My Love" and "Cherish." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Bookended by swipes from Sunset Boulevard and From Here to Eternity, and littered with in-jokes about such directors as Kenneth Anger and Roger Vadim, Hustler White documents filmmaker Bruce LaBruce's quest to subsume art cinema, Euro-kitsch, and high Hollywood gloss underneath his own punk aesthetic. Strangely enough -- it works, transforming the primitivist stance of No Skin Off My Ass into a playful and entertaining yet subversive narrative style. Although it was co-written and co-directed by Rick Castro, the film contains all those transgressive LaBruce mainstays: explicit gay sex, ritual violence, copious nudity, and playful humor about all three. More importantly, though, Hustler White solidifies LaBruce's formal tics -- mannered acting, choppy audiovisual editing, and asynchronous dubbing of the dialogue -- into a coherent critique of naturalist filmmaking techniques. Both technically and thematically this film is about artifice: the artifice of masculinity and the longing underneath. Ironically undercutting every earnest message with layers of stylization, LaBruce and Castro come as close to actual sincerity as any postmodernist can. Where contemporaries such as Gregg Araki retreat into the very genre conventions that they seem to critique, these filmmakers achieve something far more unsettling -- closer to David Lynch than to John Waters or John Hughes. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Cast
Tony Ward - Eigil Vesti
Bruce LaBruce - Jurgen Anger
Ron Athey - Seymour Kasabian; Paul Bellini - Roger's Secretary; Michael Glass - Mrs. Glass; David Johnson - Boulevard Extra; Joaquin Martinez - Ryan Block; Vaginal Creme Davis - Buster Booté; Rick Castro - Clumsy Porno Cameraman; Josh Levy - Porno Movie Crew; Soren Salzer - Porno Movie Crew; Darryl Carlton - Divinity Fudge; Kevin Kramer; Kevin P. Scott - Eigil Vesti; Christine Louise Berry - Porno Mexican Wrestling Extra; Steve Hall - Slave Tied in Wheelchair/Porno Movie Crew; Steve Anderson - Boulevard Extra; Alex Austin - Himself; Paul "Superhustler" Bateman - Billy Ray Jaded; Bud Cockerham - Bud Cockram; Gerald Harris - Escort with Wonderbread Condom; Rocco Haze - Monti's Baby; Brent Hoover - Hustler; Ivar Johnson - Piglet; Matt Johnstone - UCLA Student Driver/Porno Movie Crew; Ty Jong-Hall - Porno Movie Crew; Antonio Lee Klatt - Slave Hanging from Ankles; Billy Mauro - JFK Jr Lookalike Hustler; Ryan McAndrew - Hustler Twin; Sean McAndrew - Hustler Twin; Glen Meadmore - Stew Blake; Max Milian - Amerikka (Hustler Peeing); J. Cedric Mills - Boulevard Extra; Merle Morris - Hustler; Stephen Mounce - Daddy's Boy Hustler; Eric Polito - Boulevard Extra; Graham David Smith - Ambrose Sapperstein; Michael Spain - Boulevard Extra; Wash Westmoreland - Porno Movie Crew; Miles H. Wildecock II - Peter Festus; Dimitri Xolt - Roger V. Deem; Tony Powers - Himself; David Kendall - Verbose Escort
Credit
Steve Hall - Art Director, Josh Levy - First Assistant Director, Bruce LaBruce - Director, Rick Castro - Director, Rider Siphron - Editor, Jon Gerrans - Executive Producer, Marcus Hu - Executive Producer, James Carman - Camera Operator, Bruce LaBruce - Producer, Jurgen Brüning - Producer, Soren Salzer - Sound/Sound Designer, Bruce LaBruce - Screenwriter, Rick Castro - Screenwriter
