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(More customer reviews)PHOENIX is the third feature by Michael D. Akers as a director and writer (here sharing the credits with Sandon Berg) and as with his other two features 'Matrimonium' and 'Gone, But Not Forgotten' there is a sense that Akers knows how to tell a good story, a story based on universal themes but just happening to be using gay characters to explain a similarity in all manners of love whether they be straight or gay.
LVN Dylan (Chad Bartley) is celebrating his 23rd birthday by setting his apartment with flowers and dinner, expecting his love of one year to arrive for the surprise. The love is Ken (Gaetano Jones) who arrives late and barely notices the setting, giving Dylan a clay vase as a gift and then telling him he must dash off to Phoenix for a failing real estate deal. Dylan is hurt then angry and breaks his gift, sending Ken off to Phoenix in a miff. Sorry for his behavior Dylan takes the money enclosed in a Birthday card from his folks and flies to Phoenix to apologize to Ken. But surprises arise in Phoenix: Ken is missing, Dylan traces the broken vase to discover chef/ceramist Demetrius (Jeff Castle) and learns that Ken and Demetrius have been partnered for seven years! Neither Dylan nor Demetrius is pleased with Ken's lying and cheating but they gradually admit to finding solace with each other and spend time together, including a physical encounter that leads to others as the two prolong Dylan's stay. How the love triangle is broken but remains influential is the resolution of the story.
Akers has the sensitivity to not make the story have the happy-wappy Hollywood ending: he also has the talent to capture love encounters in a very sensual way. The actors are all attractive men and given the lack of prior experience each has had, they offer fairly strong performances - especially Chad Bartley. The film is desperately in need of editing as there are extraneous scenes galore (the landscape scenes are far to brightly sun drenched for the desert locales captured. But in the end the film is successful in that it does present the joys, trials, and disappointments in love relationships in the gay community that could have easily been in a straight character movie - and that is refreshing! Grady Harp, March 07
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