Shock to the System, directed by Ron Oliver, is a tale about a gay detective, Donald Strachey (played by Chad Allen), that is filmed in a retro style in the tradition of Sam Spade, though based on a novel by Richard Stevenson. When the film begins, Paul Hale (played by Jared Keeso) meets Strachey in an alley, gives him a check for $5,000, asks him to find someone, and then a vehicle suddenly appears to run down those standing in the alley, whereupon Hale runs away. The next day, Hale is found dead. Strachey decides to use the retainer to pay expenses in a self-appointed quest to solve the apparent crime that police have written off as a suicide. The trail leads not only to Hale’s homophobic mother (played by Morgan Fairchild) but also to the Phoenix Foundation, an Albany, New York (filming is in Vancouver, British Columbia, and nearby suburbs), nonprofit that attempts to transform those who question their homoerotic tendencies into self-accepting heterosexuals. Strachey then goes undercover to interview the foundation's psychiatrist, Dr. Trevor Cornell (played by Michael Woods), on the phony pretext that he needs help. While awaiting a first walk-in appointment with Cornell, Strachey overhears patients in a group therapy session; one utters that she hopes that police will not find out something that might be relevant to Hale’s death. Another lead points to a boyfriend, Grey (played by Stephen Huszar), who is a jock as well as a filmmaker, but soon Grey is shot dead on the very night when Strachey visits him at his workplace. Although Strachey ultimately solves the crime, in a story that has ample suspense, two themes emerge from the film. One is the point that conversion therapy is a scam, relying on mere argumentation about the inconvenience of being gay without exploring psychological elements; indeed, two of Dr. Cornell’s patients, including the murdered Hale, are referred to the clinic by homophobic parents who have agendas of their own for their sons, not realizing that their parental tyranny has brought their sons to increasingly accept their gay tendencies within Dr. Strachey’s group therapy snakepit. A second theme, the absurdity of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, emerges in a maudlin scene in which Strachey sobs about his expulsion from the army because he embraced a fellow soldier who saved his life but denied that he reciprocated. The drab cinematography presumably is supposed to convey a noir theme, but the formulaic plot might be taken more seriously if filmed in living color. MH
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