Review

Handsome, while certainly a "minor" film from the master of such semen-soaked classics as Kansas City Trucking Co. and the landmark orgy Closed Set, still boasts director Joe Gage's penchant for pricks, pud-pulling and power pops. Is it worthy of mega-praise? No way. Is it a great-looking flick? No again. Is it worth seeing? Hell yeah.

The picture and image quality range from "cool late 70s grainy", to way-too-dark, to "I can't see jack shit, dammit!", but it's got some great loads fired off. There's no real fucking (one quick shot), just barely-related phone-sex vignettes strung together with title cards showing various cities' names followed by some major jack-off and suck-off sessions, all resulting in rivers of gooey hot cum.

(Who knows why the cities are named. New York I can understand, it's a gay male mecca. But Sioux City, Iowa? Huh?)

Shot in very typical-for-the-time style (meaning lots of herky-jerky camerawork, and cheesy disco-era music), while incredibly dated, there are some gag-worthy loads here, and some really hot guys. Now remember – I'm not talking Falcon-quality guys, just butch, unshaved (and at times very skanky-looking) fellas. My fave sequence takes place in a porn theatre as a bunch of unmade and unnamed dudes (the "Gage Men", no doubt) go at it with abandon. Facials galore, with one cumpig in particular popping up in nearly every scene to gobble a load. There's also a bare-bones but undeniably hot bathroom sequence where the camera lovingly gets a close up of several dudes taking wicked-mean pisses in a urinal.

I've seen reviews both in print and on the web crucifying this film for being a "tease" and a huge disappointment. In all fairness, the company that repackaged this for DVD release should hang their heads in shame: the back of the box shows several fuck scenes that are nowhere to be found in the film. (Hey assholes: quit trying to lie to the public, ok? The film is called HANDsome for a reason.) In addition, the quality of the image is beyond bad in spots, and the "extras" listed on the DVD are crap; don't believe the hype about "photo galleries" - they're merely screenshots from the film itself.

And yes, a bareback fuck would've helped.

However, this is still a Gage for Christ's sake, and a classic Gage film is still infinitely better than most of the so-called "Pre-condom Classics" that many studios are peddling like hookers on a cracked-out-on-Tina lunch break. Hey guys, be happy someone out there is keeping these alive and in the market for you to see. If it weren't for Gage, most of you would still be whacking off to the Sears - or worse, the International Male - catalog.