Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

Body Blow is currently merely on the festival circuit, and thus far responses have been pretty mixed. I would argue that it practically invents the “camp noir” genre, though presumably there have already been other films released that fit the genre. Either way, detractors of Body Blow clearly just don’t get what it’s going for. This film is far from perfect, but it does strike the perfect balance in tone, right down to how it might as well have been titled Twink Fatale, except that even for this movie that title would have been a little over the top. Then again, the one onscreen murder scene in this film is the precise moment when Body Blow ascends to the point of high camp. And it’s kind of what made the movie work.

Mind you, this is a movie that falls apart with any close examination. The plot, as written by director Dean Francis, is so convoluted I often found it hard to ascertain why what I saw onscreen was happening. Some of it clicks together by the end, but not everything Francis attempts to wrap up in a bloody bow is quite fully contained in the package.

Speaking of packages—hooray for segues!—lead actor Tim Pocock’s figures prominently, albeit without a great deal of sense. (Side note: I don’t know if that guy’s last name was just a coincidence, but it sure got a smattering of giggles from the audience I was in.) His character, a Sydney cop named Aiden, is obsessed with the idea that not masturbating makes him both stronger and a better cop. In the opening scene, we hear the voiceover of a podcast he’s listening to, a guy with an American accept (also: coincidence?), is extolling the virtues of what we later learn is part of the “no fap” movement. Aiden eventually takes this to the extreme of buying a chastity cage for his penis—something we get several shots of him in, otherwise nude. I found myself wondering how the Motion Picture Association sets parameters for this, because it’s clearly not “full frontal” if we never see his penis, it’s rather unusual to see an actor’s testicles, however smooshed a cock cage might make them. Is this similar to it being okay to see nearly all of a woman’s breasts so long as only the nipple's are covered?

This cock-cage subplot is amusing—as is the fact that Aiden keeps chickens in his backyard, including roosters, even though you don’t need roosters in order for hens to keep laying eggs—but never feels vital to the plot. This involves Aiden’s introduction to Cody (Tom Rodgers), a guy who takes his identity as a twink so seriously that his car’s vanity plate just reads TWINK (the final shot of which is satisfyingly gruesome, incidentally). Cody is sort of a “kept boy” at the drag club run by a villainous drag queen played by Australian cabaret performer Paul Capsis. I don’t know how famous Capsis is in Australia, but this is the kind of part any drag queen worth their salt would love the play, yet Capsis doesn’t quite bite into the role the way you might hope, and his multiple club-host performances in the film fall a little flat.

It’s Tim Pocock and Tom Rodgers who make Body Blow worth watching (though Sacha Horler as Steel, the dirty lesbian cop and Aiden’s superior, has a bit of onscreen charisma of her own). I can’t pretend Body Blow was everything I wanted it to be, but it gave me plenty to work with, in that it features effectively knowing film noir tropes; it has a hot gay 40-year-old cop; it has a hot gay twink; I am also gay; and I have a pulse. That said, it also has a cinematographer (Franc Biffone) who clearly understood what the director was going for, and it has an 80s-synth-style score by a composer (Andreas Dominguez) who gave the vibe something you might find on a sonic highway connecting Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with the original Blade Runner.

Tone can really make or break a film, and this is where Body Blow nails it, staying impressively consistent with its very specific sensibility. The pacing is measured but never completely drags (so to speak), and this is in keeping with neo-noir storytelling. There’s a dangerous attraction between a copy and a young beauty, there are multiple levels of betrayal, and there are backyard cocks. Flaws aside, Body Blow is a film that truly stands apart, which makes it imperfectly exceptional. It’s not for everyone and it’s not meant to be, but I for one sit square in the crosshairs of its target audience, and I do love it for that.

Overall: B