Well, that was disappointing. This Means War is tone deaf and pointless, the comedy is dumb, the action standard punch-shoot-punch that you have seen a thousand times, and McG has no sense of humor. More to the point, I was hoping for something incompetent enough to be entertainingly shitty, but no such luck there either. So I have little to discuss here about the movie. So let’s talk for a minute about gay sex.
The two men are gay, no question. This is not a bros bonding sort of thing – the men love each other with an intensity unquieted by the insipid and wraithlike presence of Reese Witherspoon. She is the whitest white girl on the planet. Witherspoon is so translucent her costar Angela Basset became a light tan. So the girl is the subject of a fight between them, as they both meet cute in some contrived way so they try to win her over. Contrived is the focal point, as the men displace their lust for one another’s loins by pouring it into her – or rather the fight with each other over the human MacGuffin that is Witherspoon’s fragile vagile. They express a like and then a love for her that is unbelievable even to people who speak no English. For each other, they say “I love you” with a genuine affection that is only just this side of heaving pumping.
So, there is dopey action, and the contrivance of a love story. There is ‘comedy’ from terrible dialogue not resembling human communication and a sassy girlfriend of Witherspoon. Whatever her name is, she is a loudmouthed unfunny cunt whose vault is filled to brimming with semen from a gang of homeless guys living in an underpass. She is so repulsive syphilis would kill itself rather than infecting her. There are a couple of funny bits I suspect were ad-libbed. There is one moment worthy of applause where during a paintball match a shed full of children is assaulted with a paint grenade. Overall, the content is terrible – the Patriot Act is funny, the fights are boring, home invasions are cute, the director’s name is McG. But these are moments overwhelmed by the central tenet.
The real love story is between Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. They compare penis size. They walk away from hot ladies to beat the shit out of guys while gazing into each others’ eyes. Pine is told they have work to do. A German with a giant chin steps into the room. “Yes we do”, he says, while trying to conceal his boner. The two men talk about love and commitment – you know what guys actually talk about? Nothing, that’s what. Hardy’s character actually says “I would take a bullet for you, I love you, you know you know what we have, together don’t you want that with a woman?”
Of course, Pine answers in the negative. Oh, and they go on a date together and Hardy meets Pine’s mother. Even the inevitable fight between them brims with sexual tension, while any make out scene with the girl is more awkward and forced than the explanation any guy in the audience will have for their date about where their erection came from. And look at the leads. Witherspoon has the sexual dynamism of a concrete block. Meanwhile, Pine and Hardy are pinup material. Pine gives off a vibe that suggests that he is rather flexible in these matters. And Tom Hardy is well, every man in the audience of his films is bisexual by definition. I’d give the man an enthusiastic hand job, and I’m not even gay. I think.
So, This Means War functions solely as an examination into the evolution of men’s friendship into bisexuality, as well as beckoning the male audience goer into following them down the rabbit hole. So to speak. What is intriguing is what part of this Hardy will drag into the Batman finale, and the two proceed to beat each other off. I mean up.