Nine Dead Gay Guys

NINE LITTLE INDIANS

Bob Mackie and I have submitted our initial designs to Buckingham Palace for VickiWear’s proposed new look for the Queen. After racking our brains for days, we finally decided upon using Julie Taymor’s costumes for the Broadway production of The Lion King as an inspiration for the line. I thought it was a natural as it would draw in elements of royalty as well as capture all the best of that marvelous British empire in Africa. There’s a lovely Rafiki outfit for Ascot, an evening dress of dark purple satin which we’re calling the Puumba and new state robes in lovely African prints along with a matching new crown which I’ve entitled the Circlet of Life. They’re just stunning and not a bad picture hat in the bunch. We expect to get the go ahead on construction from the royal ladies-in-waiting any day now.

Normy and I still have not found a new entertainment vehicle worthy of our talents. There was, however, a somewhat mysterious message from Michael Eisner on the home answering machine today. I think he wants to unveil a new project for me, rescuing his reputation before he’s unceremoniously booted out of Disney by a group of incensed shareholders armed with pitchforks and torches. The message referred to a high profile project and guaranteed top billing. If he’ll throw in script and casting approval, I’ll be there for him and give him star power like that studio hasn’t seen since the heyday of Mickey.

I had a few moments this afternoon and put ‘Queen’ into the internet movie data base search engine in order to come up with a title that might inspire further fantastic heights for VickiWear’s royal business. One of the films that came up with such a character bore the intriguing title Nine Dead Gay Guys so I decided to give it a whirl. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the featured queen, while British, was not necessarily the one residing at Buckingham Palace. Instead, he’s a supporting player in this recent cheekily offensive British comedy.

The film, from 2002, is the work of an Irish filmmaker with the improbable name of Lab Ky Mo, which looks like either chemical elements or state abbreviations but is, apparently, some sort of appellation. It is the story of two Irish lads who have come to London to seek their fortunes. Byron (Brendan Mackey), has been there for a while, dossing down in what seems to be an abandoned insurance office when his best mate from home, Kenny (Glen Mulhern) shows up. They share a fondness for Black Death vodka and a fear that they will soon both be another unemployed homeless Paddy on the streets of London. Byron has come up with a surefire way to make enough money to pay the rent and the liquor bill. He offers his services in trade to select gentleman for financial consideration, even though he’s not gay. He soon persuades Kenny to join in the game and soon, bodies are piling up left and right as the two of them pursue fortune, the cattle prod killer of an infamous man known as the Queen (Michael Praed), and the fabulous riches stuffed by his lover, an orthodox Jew known only as Golders Green (Simond Godley), in their conjugal bed. They are abetted and foiled by such wacky characters as a randy dwarf (Raymond Griffiths) and a large breasted Lesbian (Karen Sharman) with an insatiable appetite for money and a trio of West African brother trade boys at her disposal.

In tone, the movie is very reminiscent of the oeuvre of Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame. Stones are cast cheerily at sacred cows of all stripes. The language is cheerfully coarse with long discussions of some of the more obscure sexual practices (mainly in British dialect making them somewhat unintelligible). Stereotypes are inflated to unrecognizable proportions and then punctured. The adjective sophomoric is perhaps the most appropriate. There are chuckles, an occasional belly laugh and a lot of moments that are more cringe or yuck producing, such as the dwelling upon the personal hygiene habits of a character known as Dick Cheese Deepak (Abdala Keserwani). The type of cheese is never precisely defined so I assume it was Cheshire or Wensleydale or one of those other very British varieties.

The whole film is held together by a flashy visual style with a lot of intercut titles featuring very bad jokes or puns. (A tangent on the dwarf, for instance, is introduced as ‘A Short Story’). There’s also an infectious driven score that keeps things moving along as our heroes become involved in murder, mayhem, accidental injury, the penetration of various orifices, and a trio of old ladies who act as a sort of Greek chorus digressing on a number of highly inappropriate topics. Someone was watching a few too many Monty Python episodes while composing the script.

The cast is full of unknowns and never wases with the exception of Steven Berkoff, a relatively well known British avant-garde stage actor with various film credits who portrays a languid older poof who ends up being the first of the many titular corpses. No one is terribly bad, but no one is terribly good either. I did rather like the two leads who lend a sort of deadpan earnestness to the proceedings and come across as rather likable louts, even as the events become more outrageous and the body count mounts.

This is definitely not a film for everyone. The title will fortunately scare off most individuals who should not be viewing the film. Those that venture in will need to have a high tolerance for caustic and somewhat gross comedy. I was kindly disposed, but was in a good mood when I saw it. Had I been in a foul mood, I might have had another opinion entirely.

Multiple naked male rear ends. Middle aged queen in fetish leather. Cattle prod feeling. Mattress slashing. Sex acts while driving a taxi. Gratuitous anal sex conversations. Dwarf tantrums. Penises as objets d’art. Gratuitous pedophilic priest.