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I T ' S N O T W H A T A M O V I E I S A B O U T , I T ' S H O W I T I S A B O UT I T
In 2016, shortly after filming on The Breeding wrapped, its lead actor Marcus Bellamy was charged with the second-degree murder of his boyfriend, Bernardo Almonte. After beating and strangling him to death, he confessed in a disturbing Facebook post. I watched The Breeding in blissful ignorance of this fact, so the unpleasant taste this nasty little film left in my mouth had nothing to do with its shocking afterlife.
So, where to start? Marcus Bellamy gives a detached, inscrutable performance as Thomas that tallies with his real life sideline as a psychotic killer. Unfortunately, none of the other characters are remotely likable either, although David J. Cork is inoffensive as Thomas' boyfriend.
Director Daniel Armando (Daddy's Boy) hampers his film further with that bane of the independent film: the indiscriminate use of music. The Breeding is flooded with it. And whilst some of it is quite good, less is more. Is it a film, or a string of music promos?
But it's the script that really sinks this film. Its whole raison d'être appears to be as a warning to black gay men to stay away from whitey. Only an idiot would argue that there isn't a problem with race in the gay community, but the clumsy, sledgehammer subtle insinuation that white men only pursue black men in order to satisfy their slave fantasies is as credible as a Fox News report on Trump. Moreover, it's grimly ironic that a film hell bent on attacking interracial relationships is fronted by a black man who, in the real world, murdered his boyfriend, a person of colour. This irony is presumably lost on the grimly calculating Novo Novus Productions, who are busily promoting this film without any apparent regard for the family of Bernardo Almonte. Roll up, roll up, see our leading man, sexy star of New York's Broadway Marcus Bellamy!
The Breeding is a deeply offensive, miserable film. Not because of the unpleasant themes. Not even because of the incompetence with which those themes are handled. But in the mean spirited attack on interracial love, and in the filmmaker's bald cynicism in promoting this horror show at the expense of Bernardo Almonte and his family. That, frankly, is just obscene.
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