This movie is a pretty wild "what if" story about Abraham Lincoln being gay and having a secret thing with his legal assistant, Elmer Ellsworth. It’s all told through the eyes of Taffeta, who is a Black, plus-sized queer person working behind the scenes. Taffeta uses this old history story to try and make sense of their own life and all the crappy treatment they deal with in the modern gay scene. Honestly, the whole thing feels a lot like a stage play, and it just wasn't as interesting as I hoped it would be. The story follows Taffeta, a stage manager for a small theater putting on a show about Lincoln. Every day is a drag because the audience ignores them and the actors treat them like a maid. Things get really awkward when Taffeta walks in on one of the male leads hooking up with a guy Taffeta had just seen on a dating app. To make it worse, the actor playing Lincoln actually tries to sexually assault Taffeta later on. After fighting him off, Taffeta goes out onto the e...
Young Johnny Allen arrives to Denmark from US as a secret CiA operative. His disguise is a college student. We are told that he is gay, which normally doesn't go well with CIA hiring policy and his job is to drive people from one place to another. He finds an apartment and quickly makes friend. He gets close to one of these friends named Sanders. Johnny is very attracted to Sanders but fears. if he comes on to me, that may spoil their friendship. When after almost 8 months, Johnny Allen gets his first job, Sanders decides to tag along not knowing what he is getting into. Seeing the enthusiasm and everything, Johnny tells him of his real identity and tells him that he needs to drive a man from Belgium. Things go awry when it turns out the asset he was supposed to meet has been compromised, and in his place is a villainous Russian. It's during this trip, the 2 guys also confess to each other that they both love one another. The Russian escapes and in the process all three of them get hurt. Eventually everything works out, the evil Russian is arrested and Johnny and Sander end up happily together.
The film is way too slow and lengthy for what its trying to show what they wanted to. No one would believe that the young man is either American or a CIA agent for that matter. Sanders is attractive and charming and you can see why the 2 men would fall for each other but their friendship scenes drag on for almost first hour of the movie. Also, the 2 men really don't have much chemistry together. It goes nowhere. I wonder whether this film was supposed to be a spoof or something but I guess not since apparently its based on a true story and on a novel. Kill me now!! And the random last 20 minutes where Sanders suddenly wants to meet Johnny's family and if that can't happen then they are not meant to be together. We are shown a bit of Sanders past that adds absolutely nothing to either of their stories.
Overall, it feels like a very amateurish attempt at making a film and both the director and editor just kept shooting without keeping a pulse on what audiences actually expect. (3/10)
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