The 10 Year Plan (2014)

A Disappointing Continuation

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Personally, I would have titled this 10 CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A PLOT. The actors looks ogod, the lighting, camerawork, sets, eveything looks good. tahe sound is great. What's missing? A plot, and a decent script.

I watched this on a friend's recommendation, expecting a fluffy romance dangling from an enjoyably contrived premise (hey, it worked for decades of MGM movies, right?), but no. This is, without doubt, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Writer/director J.C. Calciano tries hard to make a movie that looks good and capitalises on the eye candy potential of its two leads, but both Jack Turner (as hopeless romantic Myles) and Michael Adam Hamilton (as Grindr superuser Brody) deliver performances that are respectively horribly lacklustre and toe-curlingly bad. It doesn't help that they're both so bland, mannered, and manicured that it's hard to tell them apart after a while. Performance issues aside, the writing is either weaker than wet tissue paper or just doesn't make sense. Myles' coworker Diane (Teri Reeves) is a caricature strung together from obnoxious sexual puns and jokes about booze and women's biological clocks, allowing the move to espouse some sexist attitudes that leave a misandric taste in the mouth, but even the wisp-thin plot isn't safe from Calciano's wavering logic. The event supposed to bring Myles and Brody's relationship to the climactic point of realising they wanted each other all along is when Brody hooks up with Myles' new boyfriend "Hunter" (Adam Bucci) via Grindr, causing the jealousy and emotional baggage between them to flare into misunderstanding. Except... "Hunter" used a different name, and Brody left the minute he realised the guy was Myles' boyfriend, so there is literally no conflict here beyond Myles taking the fact he misjudged yet another relationship out on his friend, which is not really how the confrontation seems to go down.The whole thing is just terrible, neither character has the emotional range or depth that would have made the story worthwhile, and the actual story mechanics don't work. Possibly the only redeeming quality this movie has is that it showcases Brody being happily out at work with a straight friend/partner (Moronai Kanekoa) who - excepting one predictable moment of discomfort in a gay bar - is wholly supportive and comfortable embroiling himself in Brody's relationship drama. That is definitely evidence of social progress, but it's not enough to warrant watching this hot mess.

Bad acting, cheesy clichés, stilted dialogue, beautiful male eye candy. It's a pretty mediocre film, but I watched it to the end because it was nice just watching hot guys mooning over each other. Of course, they had the chemistry of, well, two C-grade actors that had just met, but whatchya gonna do?

The writer/director/producer of this film has managed to show such a minute slice of life that it's amazing it can even be seen. Barely a person of color and certainly no one who isn't chiseled and manscaped within an inch of their life. Literally the only thing I could relate to in this film is the first time the Grindr sound appeared. I was like, oh, I know that sound. I don't know if I have ever seen such a bland, whitewashed, recycled telling of a gay story. Boring, narrow-minded, and irresponsible. If you want to watch a gay-themed movie with real heart and not a WeHo spray tan, check out Tangerine, The Weekend, or Beautiful Thing. But don't waste your time on this.