Reel Thoughts: Fore!

Who knew Charlie David had it in him? The gorgeous star of Dante’s Cove and A Four Letter Word has written Mulligans (coming to DVDApril 21), a sweet and poignant film about a summer that changes a family’s life forever.

"Mulligans" are second chances in golf, and when handsome Chase (David) accompanies his studly jock roommate Tyler (Derek Baynham) home during school break, he has no way of knowing that he’ll be the catalyst for Tyler’s father Nathan (the gorgeous Dan Payne) to take his second chance at life. Nathan and Stacey (Thea Gill, also of Dante's Cove as well as Queer as Folk fame) seem to have a perfect marriage, but Nathan has buried his true sexuality so deeply, it’s never surfaced before.


The golf references come from the fact that Tyler and Chase go to work at the golf course where Nathan spends a lot of his time, perhaps escaping the nagging feeling that something’s not right in his life. Of course, when you put handsome studs like David and Payne together in a movie like this and add liquor, you have the makings of a hot, only-in-gay-films hook-up that puts a damper on the family’s vacation, to say the least.

First-time feature screenwriter David (along with first-time director Chip Hale) should be commended for leaving the aftermath messy but truer to life, even if you’re not sure what you should be feeling about what happens to the characters. For a first film, Mulligans isn’t quite a hole-in-one, but it’s definitely a birdie.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.