Testosterone Movie Review

Here’s the thing: When your lover goes out for a pack of cigarettes and doesn’t come back, it’s probably best just to let him go. If you start to chase after him, the ensuing drama will probably start to look like a two-and-a-half-star movie, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?

Testosterone opens with graphic novelist Dean (David Sutcliffe) and his devastatingly good-looking Argentinean boyfriend Pablo (Antonio Sabato Jr.) leading a perfect L.A. life. But suddenly Pablo disappears, and Dean simply can’ t let him go. When he bumps into Pablo’s mother (Sonia Braga, having a great time playing the dragon lady of Buenos Aires) at an art gallery, she informs him that Pablo has returned to Argentina, and that’s the end of that.

But it isn’t, of course. Dean hops the next Aerolineas Argentinas flight, and soon he’s patrolling the streets of Buenos Aires in search of Pablo. He heads first to Pablo’s lavish family home, but Mom is expecting him, and the police are quickly summoned. Looking for help, Dean finds Sofia (Celina Font), who works in a coffee shop across the street from the home, and soon he also meets her sexy brother, Marcos (Leonardo Brzezicki), who we will soon learn is one of Pablo’s many ex-boyfriends.

Now the noirish entanglements begin. Who's pursuing whom? Who's lying to whom? Whose motivations are pure? Whose aren’t? And who will Dean have sex with first? The gorgeous Marcos or the gorgeous bellboy in Dean’s hotel? (What’s the Spanish word for “full monty” by the way?)

Testosterone isn’t really about anything. It’s incredibly plot-heavy yet feels light as a feather, as if it were thrown together mainly to give interested audiences a good look at what’s been hiding in Antonio Sabato Jr.’s Calvin Klein underpants for all these years. (It’s the one part of his body that doesn’ t have a ridiculous tattoo on it.) Despite an engaging cast, led by the amusingly sarcastic Sutcliffe and including a delightful cameo turn from the great Jennifer Coolidge, who can do no wrong in this reviewer’s opinion, it feels flat and conflicted, part sex farce and part moody drama. And the parts add up to not a whole hell of a lot. In the end, it’s mainly a collection of unpleasant and selfish people bouncing off each other and inflicting pain with each bounce.

When watching Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, you want to yell at Griffin Dunne, “Just walk north. Just go home! Your problems will be over.” But naturally he doesn’t because then the movie would end too soon. It’s the same with Testosterone. You want to shout: “Just go to the airport, Dean. Listen to Sonia Braga. Just go home!”

Aka Testosterona.

Touch my brooding.