Raising Heroes
Picture: C
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Feature: B-
The controversy over whether gay couples should marry and
or have custody of children they then raise is heated enough, but what happens
when it is put into the context of an action film, especially a brutal
one? Douglas Langway’s Raising
Heroes (1995) does a decent job of answering that question and straight out
of the final years of the action cycle that began in the 1980s with the
Schwarzenegger/Stallone corpus. It is
fair to say that this film was made at the right time, one of the few fine
films to come out of the Gay New Wave and was strong enough to get it banned in
Malaysia of all places.
It also would only have been possible to make this film in
its original form prior to 9/11/01, and not just because it takes place in New
York. At a convenience store, a murder
takes place and it happens to be witnessed by Josh (Troy Sostillio), who was
already in a very stressful position waiting to see if he and his lover Paul
(Henry White) were going to win a child custody case. Now, they have killers and mobsters who want them dead, but the
organized hoodlums may have underestimated how much our couple really wants The
American Dream.
It is one thing to twist a situation by casting, but
because Langway allows the film to be violently graphic and brutal, it works
better than many such “straight” films in both the sexuality of the characters
(give or take the incidental gays of the Hollywood films) and how bad most of
the tired, formulaic and now highly digitized and tired films of the genre
are. Most of all, the film is fun and
it moves, something too many features of late fail to do. As compared to the likes of Greg Akari’s The
Living End from around the same time, this has a far better
screenplay. Much more than a mere
gimmick, Raising Heroes holds up very well and not enough people have
seen it. You can get the Water Bearer
DVD easily enough.
The 1.33 X 1 image was shot on 16mm and the transfer here
is on the hazy side, but it still looks better than most video and DV
productions we have seen.
Cinematographer Stephen Schlueter did a great job of keeping the camera
moving without the cliché of the shaky camera.
It makes you want to see it on film, and that is a good thing. The PCM 2.0 Stereo sound has no surrounds,
but at 16bits/48kHz, the clarity is very welcome. It also offsets the image limits. Extras include the 90-second trailer, an interactive feature that
allows you to read the certificate banning it in Malaysia, stills, a 2:40
behind the scenes featurette and terrific feature length audio commentary by
Langway and assistant director Rob Hauschild.
Film fans in particular will want to hear this one.
- Nicholas Sheffo
