Brokeback Mountain, despite being the “gay cowboy” movie and thus spurned by the religious and Republican world, generally, is a decent movie. I was loathe to watch it because I figured, from its characterization, it would be a preachy movie about gay rights and flaunt a gay romance with a heterosexual concept.

Actually, it’s a character drama that has gay characters, that’s all. If the gay agenda wants to press itself, check "Will and Grace", not Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know how many cowboys you know, but I happen to know that sexual activity between two men when there aren’t many women around isn’t an uncommon thing, and it certainly isn’t the end of the world.

This movie doesn’t make the sex or the orientation the focal topic. Instead, it focuses on four complex characters and the way that the world around them pushes them to make poor choices that destroy them all. Two choose a forbidden romance, the others choose passivity in favor of stability, and ultimately, divorce.

It shows the way that gay men feel obligated to try and live straight lives, and the consequences of such. It shows what happens when marriage fails, and the consequences it has for both involved. It shows what happens when you don’t concede a love for someone and let too much time pass.

It’s just a really well put tragedy story of love.

With a few butt sex scenes. But if you’re not totally shocked and freaked out by butt sex (and I’m not, at all), this movie is pretty standard fare.

And that’s the problem. It’s GREAT with character, but it’s also very predictable. You know one guy is gonna bite it for being gay. You know both marriages are crumbling. And you know it will end on a winsome, sad note.

The writing is excellent, but the story is hardly original beyond the gay angle.

There’s also the fact that I don’t tend to find watching people make poor choices repeatedly to be good drama. There is the redemptive fact that in the end they show that these poor choices have destroyed them all, but it’s not like they made their destructive choices to be bold, or to change the world, or to make things easier. They do it because they’re dumb asses. So while I like complex character choices that lead to ruin (see Young Adam for that), this movie is just a parade of cowardice in the face of adversity, which bugs me on a personal level.

Definitely worth a watch. A good movie, and not the Spawn of Satan Film of the Week like everyone makes it out to be. Not even too heavy on the gay, just heavy on the romance and failure drama.

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