Like father, like dumb.

Poster Boy

* Directed by Zak Tucker * Starring Matthew Newton * Regent Releasing/Here Films

When we first meet college boy Henry Kray (Matthew Newton), he's doing pretty much what any rich, good-looking, red-blooded young gay dude does being away from the parental units--horn-dogging like mad around campus. Problem is, his U.S. senator father (Michael Lerner) is one of those self-styled compassionate conservatives who vetoes AIDS funding, opposes same-sex marriage, and speechifies about "taking back" the country. Up for reelection in a tight race, the senator pressures his son to stump for him, which sends a pissed-off Henry fleeing to Palm Springs. Dragged back to school, Henry enjoys a hot campus encounter with Anthony (Jack Noseworthy), a slightly older ACT UP activist. The Henry-Anthony relationship helps spark the senator's son's very public coming-out--which precipitates a major crisis for his father and for his salty, wised-up, boozy Southern belle mother (Karen Allen).

It's not that Poster Boy isn't packed with pointed things to say about same-sex marriage, political hypocrisy, and homophobia--like Mary Cheney, this movie's hero often shows massive denial of a father's antigay agenda despite his own sexual orientation. It's not that the movie doesn't offer interesting, edgy chemistry between the gifted Noseworthy and Newton. It's that the script nearly collapses under the weight of plot contrivances and the burden of many characters forced to make hairpin changes in behavior and to mouth viewpoints rather than to emerge as living, breathing people. Good intentions aside, it's too bad that, in the end, this Poster Boy is paper-thin.