Hustler White

Kojo Films

R4 DVD

Distributed by Beyond Home Entertainment

Sexual anthropologist Jürgen Anger (played by Bruce La Bruce) flies in to LA to begin research for a new book on the seedy side of gay sex in Hollywood. He is clearly modelled on Kenneth Anger (of Hollywood Babylon and various gay cult films), yet repeatedly denies it throughout the film giving his character an ironic twist. At the same time Montgomery (Monti to his friends) works the street, after plying his trade with a well built bearded bear, he steals his wallet and car, running over another sex work in the process, crushing his foot as he drives back and forth trying to escape. A scene of grotesquely funny humour.

At that moment Jurgen sees him at a distance and falls instantly in love, he grabs the blood stained body shirt Monti has left behind and its becomes a fetish of his desire. These two characters and their chess game of lust and desire and perhaps love form the backbone of the film, at first Monti thinks Jurgen is a cop trying to arrest him but then is hired by Jurgen to lead him through Hollywood as a guide to the sex underground. They finally come together but only after Monti nearly dies hitting his head in Jurgen’s spa pool and Jurgen takes his limp body to the beach to dispose of it, Monti only regaining consciousness just in time !

What makes this strange love story so fascinating is that Bruce La Bruce does not portray sex in a clean and rarefied fashion, it is filled with all manner of fetishes, strange desires, fears, neurosis’ and, of course, finally love and companionship. Bruce La Bruce is the enfant terrible of Gay filmmaking. His movies are always controversial ranging from his confronting early skin head sex films to his more recent Gay Zombie spectacular Otto. The look of Hustler White is also helped by the collaboration of Rick Castro, a Los Angeles erotic and fetish photographer.

Of course, Bruce La Bruce always portrays sex explicitly and likes to shock as well as amuse. Hustler White must hold the record for the sheer abundance of fetishes shown from Amputee Fetishism to a funeral director who likes to bind young men in masking tape. From a Cowboy who wants to literally saddle up and ride his rent boys to drag, leather, Sado-Masochism and Bondage and Discipline.

Hustler White is really a dark comedy which uses sexual extremes to confront and entertain. There are no doubts there are some very politically incorrect scenes, the scene in which a young white male hustler (played by well known American porn star Kevin Kramer), is taught some lessons in “black power” by being drilled by some eight, ten (I lost count !) black men is totally over the top and one is not sure whether to be horrified or amused.

Hustler White is also a massive “inside joke” as well, Bruce La Bruce plays Jurgen Anger, Tony Ward, a well known male model (featured in the Madonna sex videos) is Monti, many of the rent boys are real porn stars or respected gay performances. There are also other fun cameos, for example, the Cowboy fetishist is Stew Blake, a very well known gay country and western singer!

To enjoy Hustler White you need a very broad and raucous sense of humour, for me that is the joy of Bruce La Bruce, he creates films in which we can laugh at ourselves and the thing which people take so seriously - sex. La Bruce presents sex as fun, dirty and quirky, sometimes lustful, and sometimes loving – in other words he presents it as it really is. So many films (gay and straight) present an idealized view of sex and relationships, everyone is so beautiful and the sex so clean, so sanitized. Not Bruce La Bruce, here sex is messy, dirty, filled with lots of body-types from skinheads to larger build men, from people with piercings to rent boys.

Hustler White is funny, sexy, over the top, at times shocking, at times moving, but above all, great entertainment.