Ice Men [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Thom Best of 'Queer as Folk' directs this taut story by Michael MacLennan, a tale of how friendships since childhood are altered by life's flow and the difficulties inherent in attempting restoration.

Vaughn (Martin Cummins), distraught over being tossed by his ex Renee (Brandy Ledford), invites his three best friends to his snowbound cabin somewhere in Canada for a weekend of fun, hunting and drinking. Vaughn's parents are now dead and he has taken over the family cabin that held memories of his childhood, both the good and bad aspects of it. The three friends arrive: Jon (Greg Spottiswood) is now a gay man; Steve (hunky James Thomas) is a personal trainer involved with a demanding girlfriend whom he must call constantly to reassure; and Bryan (David Hewlett) an alcoholic songwriter and singer who is on the skids and whose wife is Renee's best friend. Into this mix enters Vaughn's older estranged brother Trevor (Ian Tracey) who has spent his life gambling and comes to request his share of the brothers' inheritance to pay off gambling debts. And to further complicate matters, Renee shows up to 'get her things' and flaunt her decision to leave Vaughn in front of his friends.

In this frozen setting each of the men unearths secrets and demons: no one is who they appear to have been as childhood friends. There is a devastating schism between Vaughn and Trevor magnified by their childhood history of abuse by their hunter father, a sexual encounter between Jon and Steve that reveals much about each, and another sexual encounter involving Bryan and the visiting Renee that likewise brings the pot of ice boil over. There are no resolutions: none are needed. The story merely lets us observe the consequences of reunions with men whose lives have grown apart.

Well directed and beautifully photographed, the story unfolds in a slow but steady fashion that maintains our interest even though the characters (except for Trevor) are tropes to a degree. The one important criticism of this interesting film is the sound editor's problem: the conversations are often drowned in music or spoken so softly that the messages are indecipherable. And that is a shame, because otherwise this is a credible story of how men interact when isolated together after years of life changes. Grady Harp, December 05

Ice Men is the story of a group of friends who retreat to a cabin in the wilderness to catch up on all times. Surrounded by snow with apparantly nothing for miles around, there is a lot of mystery involved with this trip. First one friend, unexpectedly shows up. Apparantly, he has tenstion with another friend. If you are wondering why I'm not mentioning the cast members by name, it's because the character development is decent but they dont refer to the characters by name much. They hang out in the hot tub and drink too much. The men are straight for the most part and boast of girlfriends with nice rear ends and nice breasts but one of the friends finds himself very attracted to his male friend and thinks about touching his friend while he is passed out. His lust is near uncontrollable as he touches his sleeping friends private parts. When his sleeping friend awakes and is accepting of his advances things really heat up and after the hunting trip the next day it's clear things will never be the same for these friends again. There are a lot of secrets and jealousy will rear it's ugly head.

If you have been hearing a lot about the film Brokeback Mountain, you may want to check out Ice Men. This lower budge film has a similar storyline and you may enjoy it. Martin Cummins, David Hewlett, Brandy Ledford and Greg Spottiswood star in the film among others. It's a really captivating film and you will really want to watch it until the very end.

Whoever thought that this movie should be classified gay, should have their thinking process re-examined. In my opinion, the main plot or story of this movie is very heterosexual. Perhaps because there is a bed scene between two guys classifies it as gay, but it is mostly about guys bonding and their relationships since kids.

The plot revolves about a weekend outing of five guys who grew up together somewhere in Canada. It is the 30th birthday of one of the guys. They go to a cabin in the woods, a place where they use to hang together as kids. The cabin is now owned by a very successful lawyer, who happens to have a brother who is invited by one of the other guys. This guy is a looser and hated by his brother.

There is a songwriter (whose birthday is being celebrated), a gym instructor (who is acting straight but deep inside he is not), and a failing photographer (who is open gay and lets them all know at the reunion. At least he is honest about himself.) The photographer and the gym instructor go at it one night in bed. The gym instructor resents the fact that it happened, he claims he was drunk, the other guy doesn't think so.

The story is basically about how screwed up these men lives are, whether they are successful or not. The two brothers lives are closely examined and there seems to be a lot of flashback scenes on one of them dealing with a deer hunting trip with their father, whether he was forced to kill a dove to prove to be a man.

There is a lot drinking, inner soul searching, a lot of bickering and fighting among each other. A near drowning by the gambling brother (trying to commit suicide) brings them all back together at the end of the movie.

The movie was not a total disappointment but it is not what I expected. This is a mixed movie. May be some gay men can associate with this kind of material.