Stonewall

Released by: Lionsgate
Released on: January 19th, 2016.
Director: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Johnathan Rhys Meyers, Jonny Beauchamp, Joey King, Caleb Landry Jones
Year: 2015
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The Movie:

Roland Emmerich is a hack. He's also gay.

Fact number one is quite well known. Fact number two? Well, it may not be a secret, but fuck if I had any idea. But it led to this mess because apparently Emmerich, after years of doling out mass market oriented slop decided to make his "message" picture. Much like Michael Bay's atrocious PAIN AND GAIN, where that soulless devil's henchman tried to go legit, STONEWALL crashes on the rocks of the wannabe auteur's most rancid popcorn populist sensibilities.

Emmerich's STONEWALL takes the iconic 1969 riot where the NYC Greenwich Village gay community rose up in a full blooded riot against police and societal oppression and decides to dramatize the event through a fictitious character. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) is the first and most fatal flaw in the film. The fact that he's lily white isn't the problem. The fact that he's a walking cliché is. He's from a small Midwestern town. He's pretty beyond words. He was caught by his bigoted father screwing around with the local high school football stud. Dad flips and disowns junior and junior flees to the big apple to get his homosexual awakening on and be with kindred spirits.

Predictability abounds in STONEWALL. Danny sleeps in doorways. Danny meets flamboyant drag queens and befriends them. He also meets "establishment queers" - the gays that feel that outwardly appearing to conform to straight society is the way to gain acceptance. Danny is abused by the cops and forced to hustle. He performs fellatio on a creepy married guy to put food on the table and cries from the humiliation afterwards. There is a police raid on a gay club. Danny goes back to the Midwest and patches things up with mom. Dad stays a prick though. And Danny has a cool little sis who's down with gay rights and has heart to heart chats with Danny when he calls from a pay phone. Oh, and I almost forgot the Ray (Jonny Beauchamp) character: a drag queen deeply and tragically in love with Danny. Unrequited of course.

I'm not enough of an expert on this historical event to pass true judgment on the film's factual accuracy. And I have little patience for the "PC snake eating its tail" phenomenon that erupted around the film after its release. Photos of the actual Stonewall riot abound online. Despite the protestations of the diversity crowd, it does appear to have been primarily instigated by young white males with a smattering of people of color and the other members of the LGBT community involved. But that's neither here nor there. Drama needs to be dramatic and engaging. Considering how incendiary this topic can be, how did Emmerich and respected screenwriter John Robin Baitz manage to bore us so silly?

Irvine lacks charisma and screen presence. He's vapid and as offensive as this may sound, the entire character comes across as the lily white fevered sexual fantasy of a middle aged gay screenwriter. He's got one distinguishing characteristic - he's good looking wonder bread. No edge. No spark. No personality beyond golly gee. When he throws a brick during the historic riot you laugh. The rest of the cast does better - especially Beauchamp who triumphs over a poorly written generic faux outrageous role to be funny and engaging. He's got the chops for genuine pathos as well. There's some nice supporting work from the likes of Ron Perlman (as a mob connected club owner) too. But when it all ends in a virtual song and dance number in a gay pride parade the eye roll will induce whiplash.

Video/Audio/Extras:

This "dream project" of Roland Emmerich was pretty much financed by the director himself so Lionsgate only partnered up here for a DVD - no Blu ray. Such as it is, this looks... ok. The 480P/MPEG-2 anamorphic transfer framed at 2.40:1 is distinctly average. Detail is lacking and even skin tones are a bit wobbly orange at times. While this isn't an impressive transfer it does have decent black levels and is free from egregious flaws like edge enhancement. The Dolby Digital 5.1 lossy audio fares better - it's fairly immersive and well balanced, especially during the climactic riot.

Extras consist of four tiny featurettes which never exceed three minutes with most coming under two. One is a film overview and the other three focusing on the cast. All of these, with the exception of the brief chat with actor Beauchamp are pure EPK filler. Finally, you get a theatrical trailer for the film and a small clutch of unrelated Lionsgate trailers for other releases.

The Final Word:

We need more films on the gay experience. But not unimaginative, dramatically crippled misfires like this one. Hearts being in the right place don't necessarily lead to quality films. Skip this one and rent or buy a Stonewall documentary.