How could a person who is supposedly totally deaf, with any degree of accuracy, lip sync to a record playing on a juke box? Why on earth would a person running a dance school feature a porn star as a guest performer in a recital featuring pre-teen children, especially since he is playing Prince Charming, the character he had played in one of his X-rated movies? Why would a porn film aimed at a straight male audience have a poster that features a huge close up of the male star and not a revealing picture of the leading lady? Why does any of this matter? Well, thinking about such things helps to relieve the monotony of watching THE VELOCITY OF GARY* (*not his real name), a film that manages to be both pointless and pretentious at the same time. Though a more amusing way to past the time would be trying to figure out which of the characters and/or actors is the most annoying. THE VELOCITY OF GARY has the feel of one of those usually awful experimental films from the sixties or seventies where everybody seems to be improvising their dialogue, ranting and raving and generally overacting in hope of stumbling over a plot along the way.
Gary of the title (Thomas Jane) is an inarticulate bumpkin from the Midwest whose new life in New York has reduced him to selling his blood. He meets Valentino (Vincent D'Onofrio), a semi-famous, now apparently retired, bisexual porn actor, who molests him on the street after having known Gary for maybe two minutes. He immediately gets Gary a job on a phone sex line and is rewarded with some deep tongue kissing between the two (which proves to be the only sex that happens in the film, despite a video box that features XXX in great big graphics). Gary has to share Valentino with Mary Carmen (a way-over-the-top Salma Hayek), who is almost pathologically jealous. The three form sort of a REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE love triangle, set against a MIDNIGHT COWBOY aura of faux grittiness defined by suggested sexuality, destructive behavior and the mandatory battle with AIDS.
Just why both Gary and Mary Carmen are so insanely possessive of Valentino remains unclear. But it must have something to do with his skills as a porn star, because otherwise Valentino comes off as an exceedingly shallow, rather stupid, self-absorbed and self-destructive jerk. D'Onofrio, who has made a career of playing oddball, often repulsive, and usually aloof (though usually interesting) characters, brings no charm to Valentino whatsoever. He is not just a loser, he is probably even a bigger loser than Gary or Mary Carmen.
Despite the title, the film never gains any momentum and succeeds in going nowhere fast. Velocity is meaningless if not combined with a direction, something sorely missing here.
Gary of the title (Thomas Jane) is an inarticulate bumpkin from the Midwest whose new life in New York has reduced him to selling his blood. He meets Valentino (Vincent D'Onofrio), a semi-famous, now apparently retired, bisexual porn actor, who molests him on the street after having known Gary for maybe two minutes. He immediately gets Gary a job on a phone sex line and is rewarded with some deep tongue kissing between the two (which proves to be the only sex that happens in the film, despite a video box that features XXX in great big graphics). Gary has to share Valentino with Mary Carmen (a way-over-the-top Salma Hayek), who is almost pathologically jealous. The three form sort of a REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE love triangle, set against a MIDNIGHT COWBOY aura of faux grittiness defined by suggested sexuality, destructive behavior and the mandatory battle with AIDS.
Just why both Gary and Mary Carmen are so insanely possessive of Valentino remains unclear. But it must have something to do with his skills as a porn star, because otherwise Valentino comes off as an exceedingly shallow, rather stupid, self-absorbed and self-destructive jerk. D'Onofrio, who has made a career of playing oddball, often repulsive, and usually aloof (though usually interesting) characters, brings no charm to Valentino whatsoever. He is not just a loser, he is probably even a bigger loser than Gary or Mary Carmen.
Despite the title, the film never gains any momentum and succeeds in going nowhere fast. Velocity is meaningless if not combined with a direction, something sorely missing here.