Michael Cuesta's debut film, L.I.E. is impressive in many ways, none of them having anything to do with a cinematic value as much as the willingness to shock the audience with a story that seems lifted from the pages of a collection of gay erotica. (Not that this is a bad thing.) It tells the story of a teenager, Howie (Paul Dano), and his elliptical path which takes -- or lets say, wrenches -- him away from the pretend security of his own home after his father (Bruce Altman) is discovered to be involved in shady business and plants him squarely in the path of John "Big John" Harrigan (Brian Cox), an ex-marine who has a penchant for young boys and who holds a position of almost revered admiration from everyone in the Long Island town where he lives. The two of them have met before, several times as a matter of fact, the first time being in a less-than-welcome way: Howie's blind attraction to a kid his own age, Gary (Billy Kay), who holds a dangerous reputation as being a little too solicitous with other men (indeed, early in the movie Howie's father lets him know he doesn't like Gary because "he smiles too much") leads to an incident where Gary steals two of Big John's prized guns. Big John, wanting to recover the guns (and probably knowing Gary has them) puts Howie in the delicate position of having to retrieve them from Gary at the same time Gary, no one's friend, breaks into Howie's house and steals his father's stashed money. With Gary gone and his home in a moral shambles, Howie becomes the protégée of sorts to Big John who expresses an uneasy attraction not based in sex (while politely asking his latest boy-toy (Walter Masterson) to stay a couple of nights in the nearest motel -- what a nice guy!). Interesting to note that Howie is the one who tries on several occasions to seduce Big John, one time resolving to quote a passage from Walt Whitman. It's not a bad film -- Brian Cox does manage to give his character a belated sense of sympathy -- but somehow, the story feels too open-ended, much like the motif of the Long Island Expressway that goes from East to West and could land Howie anywhere within the state of New York. However, it is daring and filmed without an exploitative hand and because of this, L.I.E. is better than its material and the times we live in would ultimately let it be.
