The film that poses the cause-and-effect question about toxic masculinity and unhinged behavior.
No equine beasts adorn this queasy comedy. Too bad. The title “Some of Our Stallions,” parodies, one presumes, the self-aggrandizing language certain American males apply to themselves. The would-be “stallions” here are a couple of misfits. Carson Mell, a burly, bearded guy who insists on being addressed as “Beautiful Bill,” wrote and directed the movie as well as taking a starring role alongside Al Di, also a producer, who plays the fast-talking Andy. In the opening scene, Bill, in a fast-food restaurant meltdown, dunks his hands into the hot oil of a deep fryer.
Soon after this, Bill decides what the two really need are girlfriends. After starting the quest at a mall and predictably striking out, Bill terrorizes a delivery guy, steals his car, and drives himself and Andy to a mental hospital — a place they are both familiar with — and lies to a discharged patient, telling her they’re with the government and providing rides. That woman, Bonnie (Olivia Taylor Dudley) actually takes a shine to Andy and eventually becomes pregnant by him.
The movie’s occasional references to “Taxi Driver” suggest that Mell wants to make a statement about loneliness, or something. But the movie also indulges in a glut of stereotypes about mental illness that Mell enacts with an unseemly enthusiasm — like he’s executing an antisocial wish-fulfillment exercise. The sight of Mell running around outside in pajama bottoms brandishing a toy ray gun is neither as funny nor as illuminating as Mell seems to think it is. And the 180-degree move the filmmaker pulls at the denouement isn’t so much a sellout as an opportunistic surrender to hipster sentimentality.
Some of Our Stallions
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
