| Stereotypically, macho Latin lovers enjoy sex partners as conquests whom they can gradually dominate to a point where they lose interest in the weaker partner; jealous of adversaries, they can take extreme measures to assert control, though they will eventually drop their conquests in a state of psychological disarray. Testosterone depicts a love-obsessed Anglo American who is indeed in disarray; the tagline is “Breaking up is hard to do.” Dean Seagrave (played by David Sutcliffe) draws gay cartoon stories. As opening credits roll, his cartoons about meeting and loving Pablo Alessandro (played by Antonio Sabato, Jr.) feature a hot two-week love affair that has culminated in the two living and sleeping together at Dean’s pad in Los Angeles. However, one day Pablo vanishes without an explanation. Although Dean attempts to find out more information from Pablo’s mother (played by Sonia Braga), she imperiously tells him at an art exhibit to stay away from her son, who has returned to Buenos Aires. Unable to go on living without Pablo, Dean flies to Argentina in hot pursuit of his lover. Without even bothering to shave his beard, he soon knocks on the door of the Alessandro residence, but Señora Alessandro summons the police. Dean snatches the police officer’s gun to make a getaway; but, after he tosses the gun back into the police car, he is never apprehended. He is so relentless in his pursuit that he fails to contemplate why the police never catch up with him for his misconduct. Soon, Dean is cruised by a good-looking young man, Marcos (played by Leonardo Brzezicki). But Dean is looking for Pablo and does not want to be distracted by having a love affair with someone less macho than Pablo; indeed, Marcos confesses that Pablo dumped him before going to the United States. Sofía (played by Celina Foni), a waitress at a café across the street from the Alessandro townhouse, offers to help but leads Dean on a wild goose chase to her family’s home, where her brother Marcos again tries to seduce Dean. When discovered the following morning under a tree, Marcos appears to have been shot. Sofía then suggests that Dean should quickly return to the United States before being arrested for murder. Dean, however, believes that Pablo did the killing, and Sofía does not contradict him. Next, Dean pockets the gun presumably used in Marcos’s death so that he can deal with Pablo, for whom he now has considerable enmity. Next, Señora Alessandro summons two goons to assault him, but Dean evades them and hides out in a cemetery overnight. In the morning, Sofía coincidentally appears, and Dean has Sofía drive around in pursuit of Pablo, even buying a machete, duct tape, and a head-sized cooler; he is clearly intent on killing Pablo. Although Sofía pretends that she does not know where Pablo is, a cellphone call belies her claim. Dean’s testosterone (or, more appropriately, Ugly American cowboy bravado) then surges so much that the gun accidentally goes off, wounding her hand, whereupon Sofía promises to arrange a meeting between Dean and Pablo. The meeting takes place as newlyweds Pablo and Sofía exit from a church in order to walk to a nearby reception. Dean then crashes the reception, confronts Pablo (who is having sex with a waiter), and leads him at gunpoint to a car, where his hands and feet are bound by duct tape. En route to Sofía’s family estate, Pablo admits that he has consented to a marriage of convenience that will join the Alessandro wealth with the respectability of Sofía’s cash-poor upper class family. Upon arrival at the estate, Dean orders Pablo out of the car and onto his knees and brandishes his machete. The film then cuts to a scene in which Dean is presenting his latest cartoon story to his literary editor, Louise (played by Jennifer Coolidge), based on an Argentine escapade that appears to be what has just appeared on the screen. Filmviewers may now suppose that the entire story is a fabrication. The final scene, which shows that the pursuit of money trumps passion, clears up loose ends: Excess testosterone has blinded Dean to the fact that men are not in control after all. The noir movie, directed by David Moreton, is based on James Robert Baker’s novel, which was published in the year 2000. MH |