CROSS COUNTRY 1 & 2

Available on DVD - order here

Vigorously promoted as a blue-ribbon porn epic (Falcon made no secret that they filmed on locations just around the corners from where the most spectacular outdoor scenes of The Lord of the Rings trilogy had been filmed, and offered buyers the chance to win a trip for two to New Zealand) the Cross Country series is full of superlative sex scenes performed by a virtual who’s-who of Falcon’s white-hot exclusive contract superstars. The spectacular potential of the locations is never fully realised, though, and the film’s cheesy aura, which includes lines of dialogue like “it was love that saved us” mouthed by eyebrow-arching, flashy-eyed actors aligns the films closer to “The Young and the Restless” than The Return of the King. But there’s also a real charm to the films including what appears to be a message that gay men need to rethink their attachments to drug-soaked, sex-centred cult like ghetto culture and focus instead on looking for love.

The basic plotline: a valuable Tiki artifact has been stolen from a museum, and important-looking Dean Monroe enlists his layabout boyfriend Roman Heart to call in some of his burly friends to track the Tiki down. Matthew Rush and Erik Rhodes, Roman’s friends, duly set out to find the treasure, and along the way get separated and encounter trios and couples who’ve escaped from a gay sex cult, who force feed new recruits opiate berries to induce hypnotic erotomania which entraps them in the cult’s never ending orgies. The cult has possession of the Tiki, which they have surrounded with flower petals as it is their primary voodoo-talisman. Rhodes is captured by the cult, and episode one ends with him threatened with a bowie knife for no apparent reason. In the second film, Rush attempts to rescue his mucly buddy and we learn that Monroe has an ulterior motive for retrieving the Tiki.

Sex highlights in the first film are an encounter between Rush and an strangely American-accented “local”, Ethan Kage. Both massive guys are built out of concrete, and their scene together is a real treat. High on the magic berries, Rhodes gives Maxx Diesel, my personal favorite porn star who we never see enough of, a great blowjob before moving on to look after the entire cult, about seven guys including the swarthy, inked-up Derrick Vinyard and Joe Sport, a close-to-forty muscle man who is the second-best looking guy in the whole series. Film two takes a a little while longer to hit its straps, with two long and unsatisfying threesomes playing back to back. The first features Heart, who is never less than excellent in any film he plays. A post-AIDS heir to Joey Stefano, he lets out these little yelps every now and then to let us know how much he’s enjoying getting manrammed. He is also beautifully built and boyishly handsome and like Stefano, doesn’t bother pretending to be anything other than a fuck rabbit. In this way, Heart and Stefano set themselves above most of their peers, who always seem to be hoping for a break into “real acting”. Anyway, his first scene involves Kane O’Farrell, who I don’t find attractive and who is too robotic and bossy in his sex style, and Trey Casteel, a real looker who is mystifyingly given the least amount of screen time in this scene.

Next, Dakota Rivers, Tyler Marks and Ethan Hunter perform a completely uninvolving threesome that is ruined by Hunter’s harshly tweezed eyebrows and generally bitchy, department-store-menswear-assistant demeanour. The bonus behind-the-scenes part of the dvd which shows Rivers being applied with foundation and eyebrow pencil while he talks nervously about making his porn debut makes appreciatio of this scene impossible and in any case, as mentioned, the scene is flat.

Things kick up a gear when we return to the cult, where the orgy is still underway and all the afore-mentioned hotties are still hard at it. We get to see Diesel fuck Sport, and this section alone would make both films worthwhile if it wasn’t for the fact that editing has compressed this specific part-of-the-action down to a few thirty second grabs. Rush creeps in while the cult are resting and unties Rhodes from a sacrificial fuck-table. The Tiki, a remarkably tacky plastic-enameled object which looks like something you’d pick up on your way out of Auckland duty free to give to your grandmother for Christmas, is secured but later, Rhodes and Rush agree that their random lives of adventure are over, and the Tiki is discarded. Monroe is uncovered as some sort of antique embezzler and is charged with multiple offences before beginning his punishment in a four way orgy scene with the arresting officers.

Rush, Rhodes and Heart retire to a yacht where Heart gives it all he’s got while Rush seems to be a little cut out of the action. The three principals give to-the-camera confessions at the film’s coda, where they talk of how friendship is more important than selfishness, and so on.

In other words, an overblown promotion wasn’t necessary for a very superior series of gay porn films. Maybe I’m reading things into it, but I couldn’t help hearing the recurrent message about committed relationships and real friendships being a necessary escape route from crystal meth sex-weekends (symbolised by the berry-orgies, surely?) and while I don’t see any place in porn (or any fictional film, for that matter) for trite social messages, I thought it made for a nice warm feeling, which permeates the genial Cross Country series.