ROCKNROLLA

United Kingdom, 2008
Director: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton

Homosexual men who pass as heterosexual men often walk a difficult line between deceit and non-disclosure. When men can tell that you’re a gentleman who prefers gentleman from fifty paces, there’s really no need to go through that whole messy “coming out” process.

But, if you don’t wear your sexual preference on your sleeve, it can be difficult to find the right moment to drop the g-bomb with a straight pal.

Bonding with other men is one of the distinctive pleasures of being a guy. No secret homoerotic subtext there. No double-entendres about “male bonding” intended. No shirtless volleyball scenes with “Playing with the Boys” in the background.

Good friendships with straight men and healthy inclusion into male groups are social benefits of maleness that homosexual men often miss out on. It ends up this way probably in part because both homosexual and heterosexual men have a hard time getting over the revelation of homosexuality and finding common ground as men.

Male friendships have their own character and their own rules. The complexity of male social processes is often underestimated. Men are always feeling each other out and there are thousands of questions, often barely articulated or even consciously asked:

“How is this guy going to handle certain information?”

“Is he hyper-sensitive? Am I going to have to tip-toe around his feelings, his special interests, his identity group, his politics, his sensibilities?”

“Is he annoying? Does he offend my sensibilities?”

“What’s he made of? Can I push him around? Will he stand up for himself? Will he push me around? Could he kick my ass? Could I kick his ass?”

“Is he someone I can trust? Is he someone I could count on?”

After that’s all been established and you’ve formed a real friendship, or when you’re going through that process, the whole “by the way, I have sex with men” thing can really throw a wrench in the works. That confession can make a man feel like he doesn’t really know you at all, like he made a mistake, like you pulled one over on him.

And, it brings up a whole new set of questions.

“Is he trying to have sex with me?”

“Are we really even friends, or is he just hanging around to get in my pants?”

“Is he going to get offended now and lecture me when I say something politically incorrect? Is he going to be sensitive about this? What have I said that might have offended him? Is he already holding it against me?”

“Do we really have anything in common?”

“Is this who he really is, or is he going to start fagging out?”

“Is he going to start telling me how to dress?”

“Is he checking me out right now?”

“Am I going to have to listen to Madonna?”

It’s rare to see that process handled honestly and even-handedly in a film—especially without a preachy moral. It’s even rarer to see it handled with nonchalant humor.

Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla is a hoodlum caper flick. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s not bad if you like that sort of thing. It has its moments.

Gerard Butler, best known as the King of Sparta, plays the small-time crook “One-Two.” He’s riding along with “Handsome Bob” on the eve of Bob’s pending incarceration, and One-Two is telling Bob all about the big send-off the boys have planned for him.

“We’ve got a couple of grams of hurry-up, four Jack-the Rippers. We’ve got the hottest twins—probably the most expensive escort girls ever to have escorted. They’ve got the night off from the Russians and they have been greased down just for the Bobsky.”

Handsome Bob, however, seems down. One-Two starts prodding, assuring Bob that he’s his best mate, and that he would understand anything, and Bob finally breaks.

“I don’t want the strippers, One-Two. I want you.”

One-Two slams on the breaks, gets out of the car and starts shouting at Bob. He feels betrayed. And it’s not pretty.

One Two: “You dirty bastard! Bob, I know all your girlfriends, all of them.”

Handsome Bob: “I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

One Two: “What, I wouldn’t understand that you’re a fucking homo? You’re Handsome Bob. You’re Handsome Bob, the fucking lady-killer, that’s who you are. Do you hear me, Bob? I mean, I’ve had showers with you, man. You’ve seen my fucking cock.”

Handsome Bob: “I should have just kept my mouth shut.”

One Two: “Yeah you’re right, you should have kept your mouth shut!”

[Handsome Bob buries his face in his hands]

One Two: “We should’ve just gone and done the strippers like Handsome Bob would’ve done. You should just drown the cat instead of letting it out. No, no, not you. Not fag Bob.”

Handsome Bob: [Handsome Bob still has his head buried in his hands. One Two enters the car] “I am so sorry.”

One Two: “Well, I’m sorry.”

Handsome Bob: “No, I’m sorry.”

One Two: “No, I’m sorry.”

Handsome Bob: “No, no, I’m sorry.”

One Two: “No, I’m fucking sorry, Bob, all right? I went over the top a bit. And it was a bit of a fucking surprise, Bob. It was a bit of broadside.”

Handsome Bob: “It’s fine, it’s fine. Five years, you know, I don’t know if I can handle it.”

One Two: “I don’t know what I was thinking, Bob. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a poof or being a gay, or whatever it is you call it, I don’t know. I mean, there’s gonna be plenty of your lot in there. You’ll probably love it.”

[Bob buries his hands again, groaning, says "Oh God"]

One Two: “What -? What exactly is it that you…? That you want to do to me, then, Bob?”

Ritchie, to his credit, lets his audience imagine what the request was, and what exactly happened.

There’s something real about that scene. Both guys have a humanity to them. One-Two still cares about his friend, but he doesn’t know how to handle the fact that his pal is a “poof.” Bob crossed the line emotionally at some point, and has probably been fixating on his One-Two. A recent article in the New York Times described this as one of the most frequent “deal-killers” in homo/hetero male friendships. Dwelling too much on a thing that can never be is destructive to any meaningful friendship between such men in the long term.

I’ve learned over the years how to compartmentalize my sexuality and keep my mind from wandering too far down paths that would hurt the camaraderie I value. My solution has been to treat straight men like married women, at least in terms of nurturing any unrealistic sexual fantasies. As a man, the idea of giving another man that much power over me when I know that its’ always going to be a one-way street is more than a little uncomfortable.

As far as Rocknrolla is concerned, Bob never really goes to prison, and he and One-Two sort things out. Handsome Bob turns on the homo charm to his crew’s advantage, and he remains a thug like the rest of them. There’s a touch of Jean Genet in him for that reason, albeit with less tortured, fetishistic yearning. He’s one of the guys, who just happens to like “sausage and beans all day long.” Another gangster, Mumbles, says:

“If I could be half the human being Bob is at the cost of being a poof, I’d have to think about it… Not for very long, but I’d have to pause.”

Rocknrolla is not a “message” film. It’s not a public service announcement or a political plea for sympathy and understanding. It’s a half-serious guy movie about conflict, strategy and stylized violence. Which is exactly why the Handsome Bob and One-Two sub-plot deserves a little attention. This is not Brokeback Mountain or Milk. It’s a movie average young straight men have actually seen. The portrayal of homosexuality, and of men dealing with it, seems natural and contemporary. Save for a few off-handed epithets, Bob really isn’t emasculated by his peers. He doesn’t suddenly become someone else, and he isn’t used as some sort of token or as stereotypical comic relief. He’s slick, aggressive and comfortable in his own skin.

In its relaxed handling of homosexuality, Rocknrolla reminds me of another British gangster film. In The Long Good Friday (1980), Bob Hoskins played Harold Shand, a gangster whose plans to get into legitimate real estate development—also a theme in Rocknrolla—begin unraveling with a series of attacks on his friends and associates. The scene that opens the film is the murder of Harold’s homosexual friend, Colin, in the midst of some locker room cruising. Harold tosses off some snappy one-liners about “buggers” while Colin is still missing, but when he find’s out that he’s been murdered, Harold gets choked up and eulogizes Colin on the spot.

“I did my army service with Colin. We did 6 months in the slammer together. Two kids of 18. 6 months. They put us right through it, the bastards. Survival course on maneuvers. You had to have this bleeding great bazooka about. One winter, snows, blizzards…freezing the balls off the ponies. I got lost. In those days you stayed lost, till they charged you for going AWOL. Colin got a 24 hour pass, and came out looking for me on his own. Lucky he found me—I would have froze to death. Colin never hurt a fly. Well, only when it was necessary. He was always clean, wasn’t he? There wasn’t anything malicious about Colin. Me and Colin was very close. I’ve known him since he was in school…”

Harold knew all about Colin’s “buggery,” but he counted him among his closest and most trusted friends and business associates. Colin isn’t disposable, and Harold isn’t embarrassed to be associated with him. He genuinely grieves for the loss of his good friend.

These realistic portrayals of fraternity between straight and homosexual men are worth more than trumpeted milestone films like Milk and Brokeback Mountain because average straight men actually watch action movies on purpose. When homosexual men are shown as valued parts of male groups that straight men can actually identify with, it’s a step towards normalizing meaningful friendships and alliances between homosexual men and the other 95% of the male population.

Jack Donovan is the author of Androphilia and the co-author of Blood-Brotherhood. He lives in Portland, Oregon (USA), where he works in the fitness industry and blogs at www.jack-donovan.com. Donovan was first interviewed by Outrate in 2007.