Harassment in general and and in sexual matters comes in many forms and degrees. This film tackles the politically avoided reality of hetero / homosexual male rape. Not your usual scenario, at least in movies.
Yes films like short eyes and American Me and several others deal with it in a prison context, but here we are in a suburban neighborhood where the aggressor is not only insane and homicidal, but a black dude
obsessively and maniacally pursuing a white jock-type, using, among other things the standard ploy, initially, that the guy is really homosexual because he's having problems with his wife.
But the situation keeps escalating because polite refusals turn into obvious rejections and forthright hard refusals but nothing will stop the psychotic come on. Now there are physical attacks several murders and destruction of property, all of this over the top stuff. But the tone of it is straight on accurate. I mean I know guys who have been through this. I once had an employer who attempted this with me and had to be sorted out, lost his job and some other stuff, and never got his longed for prize.
At first we are supposed to take the liberal position that the victim is a jerk because he's rejecting his friend when he finds out he's gay, which makes him the politically incorrect bad guy. And he is quite unapologetic that it's true...he doesn't want his young daughter exposed to what he considers perverse. So, long before we are shown that in addition to his pursuers sexual stance, he's a murderer who burns his lovers to death, we are shown that neither of these guys are being considered for sainthood, and in fact the pursuer is initially depicted as a wounded bird, that just wants to be "friends." But all this reverses.
This stuff DOES happen, and with a political environment that will probably soon be encouraging relations with different animal species, it is hardly a surprise. Although there are multiple references and inferences to the combined
sexual AND racial aspects of this "affair" the main concentration is on the endless harassment. It is a good movie for showing the complete disregard of a victim's rights and feelings, the total lack of empathy a stalker has,
the sense of crazed entitlement that some people have. And this psychopathic package is all wrapped up in "I love you."
It would seem that in REAL WORLD many many people are trapped and maneuvered into extremely abusive exploitive situations by cunning creeps of any sex or race. .My guess, is, again, that the low rating here derives from people being offended by the racial aspect but they are missing the point. That being a particular race is irrelevant. This pair started as buddies and would have remained so if the straight guy, NOT to be misread as Caucasian guy, did not get put off by by first the discovery of his friend's sexual proclivities, and then his open attack upon him with those intentions.
By the time he's blowing things up, we know he's taking anti-psychotic and anti depressant and anger suppressing meds, whatever those might be, and we discover he has a history of arson and murder, all sympathy for this character is pretty much gone. The movie has now battered us with who the bad guy definitely is.
I like it because while it does go over the top, it is in the service of making a valid point about the dynamics of abusive relations and shows how their architecture develops. We are living in highly "sociopathic" times. To adjust to an insane society you must become somewhat insane to fit, and make no mistake, we are living in an evil place ruled by insane evil people. About the only thing that never comes up here is religion or some kind of overriding god consciousness.
It's definitely a movie of interest and guys like this absolutely exist, hunter and hunted.