Uptight, straight-laced, arms-folded-across-the-chest gay working-stiff in New York City gets picked up by a hunky go-go boy...but they can't find a place nor an uninterrupted moment to make out. Christian Campbell plays the closet case, and he is so unnaturally talkative and self-conscious that one hopes the director will ditch him and take the party elsewhere. Campbell, who smiles like a TV infomercial pitchman after reading his lines, has probably been coached into being a drip since this is the kind of delayed-intimacy picture today's filmmakers are most comfortable with: keep the two gay men as far apart as possible--that way, there are no issues over showing homosexual coupling on-screen. Midway through, our white-bread hero gets cornered by an angry drag queen in a men's room, and it's one of the ugliest scenes in a gay-oriented movie that I can recall. So, will the would-be songwriter and the unassuming stud with the six-pack finally get it on? I'd rather see a picture about the older gay couple who reunite on the street and walk off into the night. * from ****

Sweet office boy Gabriel (Christian Campbell),a wannabe Broadway musical writer, is forced to spend a night out on the town when his selfish straight roommate keeps monopolizing the apartment for flings while his girlfriend is out of town, and ends up meeting the handsome Mark (John Paul Pitoc),a quietly charming dancer who entices him for a fling. The only problem is neither of them have a place to go, and when they do manage to find time alone in Gabriel's apartment, they are interrupted by his comically neurotic friend (Tori Spelling) and later the girlfriend of the roommate. So while trying to find a place to successfully do what the boys do, they find they share more than just a desire for sex, being tricked by fate (as the theme song reveals) as they possibly head for more than just being each other's "tricks" (a slang term for pick-up).

Taking another gay tale of the naked city, "Trick" ends up being a sweet and likable romantic comedy, taking the viewer into the nightclubs of Chelsea, an Off-Off Broadway theater, a piano bar, a late-night village diner, and finally to the corner of 7th Avenue and Christopher Street as the two new acquaintances part. "What kind of a girl do you think I am?", the confidently macho Mark asks when Gabriel inquires about their initial plan for sex. Along the way, there's a visit with Gabriel's older effeminate friend (Steve Hayes),who sings a dirty song in Spanish, a truly hysterical intentionally bad performance from Spelling as she sings one of Gabriel's songs at a musical theater workshop, and views of various types of gay and lesbian characters, some naughty, some nasty, a few nice, yet all identifiable to anyone who has ever ventured into a metropolis gay ghetto. Campbell and Pitoc share a sweet chemistry that has you really rooting for them, and you will laugh until you cry at the obnoxiously over-demanding character that Spelling plays. There's also a fabulous cameo by Miss Coco Peru who is not afraid of allowing the camera to get a little too close to her face to parody the drag queen image which only serves to show that there's more beyond her than what you see on screen.

As far as this one's place in the over-emergence of gay cinema in the 1990's, it certainly is one of the more interesting, because it really explores the desire to find love while de-emphasizing the physical nature of the stereotypical sexually needy gay male. Even its title is a metaphor, the first impression being that it is all about the pick-up, then raising that flag in the viewer's head that indeed, it was about something else all the time.

As soon as you finish watching it, you'll want to rewind it and watch it again. The sweetest, most refreshing movie I have seen. Something about it (maybe the thoroughly funny and romantic love story) leaves with the greatest feeling in the world. And I go around for hours after I've watched it singing "Enter You". Funny, engaging, sweet, romantic, and (I know it's the same word the critics used, but they were absolutely right) magical!