Written by Ron McGee And Richard Stevenson
Directed by Ron Oliver
Donald (to Timothy): "You ever wonder what your life would be like if you weren't gay?"
Last week I had watched Third Man Out, the debut movie in the Donald Strachey series. It was time for the sequel and once again, a murder mystery got turned on it's head.
Our leading man, Donald Strachey (Chad Allen) found himself meeting at night with Paul Hale (Jared Keeso) in an alley. The meeting got harshly interrupted and shortly, it appeared that Paul had seemingly died of an overdose. Of course, Strachey wasn't convinced of that.
It didn't help that Paul had a conservative mother named Phyllis (Morgan Fairchild) and that Paul himself had been attending a gay conversion called the Phoenix Foundation, which was led by Dr Trevor Cornwell (Michael Woods) and his wife, Lynn (Anne Marie DeLuise). This plot subverted some of my expectations.
For a moment, I genuinely believed that Trevor was going to be revealed to be a self loathing closet case and that he killed Paul as a crime of passion. Instead he was having an affair with fake lesbian, Katey (Rikki Gagne) and Paul uncovering the futility of the Foundation's work ended up being his downfall. Yet, it felt like Trevor kind of got away with things.
The highlight of this conversion therapy plot was more to do with the insight into Donald's past. Yes, his undercover attempts were ruffled halfway through the movie but I liked how he revealed to Timothy (Sebastian Spence) about his military past and the relationship with Kyle that had soured during that time. It was a nice insight into the character.
As for the rest of the movie, some of the other "ex-gays" included not so clandestine couple Walter (Ryan Kennedy) and Levon (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) as well as struggling family man, Grey (Stephen Huszar) and film student, Larry (Shawn Roberts). They're a decent bunch of characters and I liked their interactions with Strachey throughout the movie.
Last but not least, there was some decent screen time dedicated to Donald and Tim, attending social engagements and sharing Martinis in a bubble bath. Oh and Kenny Kwon (Nelson Wong) returned just so Donald could get himself an office manager/secretary.
- Detective "Bub" Bailey (Darryl Shuttleworth) returned again to offer his own help with Donald's case.
- Donald made a point of telling two different characters that he only beats up people who deserve it. He had no problem knocking a gun toting Katey out for good measure. He's also been featured in The Advocate.
- Standout music: Peter Allen, Vincent Mai and Sibell Thrasher's I'm Over You.
- Chronology: An unspecified amount of time since the first movie. It's an adaptation of the fifth book in the series.
Shock To The System had the whole gay conversion plot and I was a bit worried with how it would be handled. It's done pretty along with the twists and turns in the mystery itself. I liked getting more on Donald's past as well.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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