Product Description

Emotionally daring and bristling with powerful performances, Dog Tags explores the cost of self-discovery as two unlikely souls connect. Abandoned by his father and raised by his single mother, handsome and sexually confused Nate obligatorily joins the Marines to support his fiancée. On leave, the detached Marine meets Andy, a magnetic and seemingly free-spirited young man with big dreams of Hollywood. Initially their bond is purely platonic, but the smoldering chemistry they share is undeniable as it sizzles into something sensual and intimate. Together they plunge headfirst into waters of vulnerability and desire, while the identity of Nate s father finally rises to the surface.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9358 in DVD
• Brand: TLA RELEASING
• Released on: 2008-11-18
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Features

• Abandoned by his father and raised by a single mother, Nate Merritt joins the Marines to support his soon-to-be fiancee. While on leave in Palm Springs, he meets a seemingly free spirited young gay man, who leads him on a path of better understanding; of himself and the surprising identity of the father he never knew. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR Age: 807839003

Review
"A visually stunning film... the two leads and supporting cast give powerful performances." --Courier Post

Review
"By expanding his gaze and focusing on Preiss s (mostly) straight man and the women who rule him (including American Graffiti s Candy Clark), (Damion) Dietz has freed himself as a writer." --The Village Voice

Customer Reviews

A heartbreaking modern romance with lessons in masculinity
Nate Merrit (Paul Preiss), a Marine just entering boot camp, is a superhero with an identity crisis: He's neither Superman nor Clark Kent. He's trapped by both a fiancee (Amy Lindsay) and a mother ("American Graffiti" Oscar-nominee Candy Clark) who don't love him for who he is, but for the the man they think he could be.

Andy Forte (the incredible, intense Bart Fletcher) is an equally lost "careless... carefree" loner who "loses track of time" and "can't remember whether something happened four minutes ago or forty years from now." Like Nate, Andy is on leave from his responsibilities when the two meet at an ill-fated "Straight Marine's First Gay Sex" porn shoot that neither thought they'd be involved with thanks to the maniupulation of its sleazy producer.

Nate, a wannabe mechanic, helps get Andy's car fixed and the two learn more than they should by eavesdropping on conversations each has with the white trash families they're trying to escape. Both have abandonment issues and while lost in dreams of the future fall in love with the idea of one another. The two can't change one another's destinies, though they both wind up choosing to be better men than they'd ever planned to be by wiping the slate clean.

A picture frame, a drive in movie theater screen, and a titular set of "Dog Tags" all fit into place in the haunting mystery of who Nate is, who his long lost father isn't, and the heartbreaking love story between a pair of stray animals.

Unique coming-of-age story of two young men.
Raised by his single, working mom, Nate never had a father, older sibling or close friend as a role model, and has been pretty much sleepwalking through his young life, doing what he was told but neer following through on anything he started. To make money to buy his older girlfriend a nice engagement ring, he enlists in the Marine Corp and, having completed basic training, has a leave to visit home before he takes combat training and gets deployed to Iraq. Hitchhiking to a jewelry store near the base, he gets detoured to a place where he meets up with Andy, a seemingly free spirited young gay man who is on a "road trip" to leave his responsibilities behind. The two misfits form a mutually supportive friendship, and travel together, visiting Andy's mother (a Hollywood actress turned recluse) and looking for Nate's father whom he has never met. Along the way, their friendship turns from platonic to a sexual affair, and the two take a big step toward becoming responsible adults.

This isn't really a gay romance, as the sexuality of the young men seems as confused as they are, meaning this might just be one side trip in their paths to adulthood. But it is a beautifully-told story of life and love, how loneliness and lack of direction can affect a person, and how much difference a good friend can make. Film is not rated, but would be a soft R for sexual content and rear nudity. DVD has director commentary and trailers. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Cheesy acting, some boring scenes - but interesting.
This is not really a truly gay film. It's about two guys, one straight, one gay, who meet up in an unlikely world. There is some frontal nudity, but not from the two stars. The single sex scene is hardly worth watching.

From an actor persepective, Paul Preiss did a superb job acting as Nate Merrit, the lost Marine who goes searching for his real father. Bart Fletcher, who plays an equally lost Andy Forte in the movie, also did a nice job, yet does not seem to play the gay role well.

Each guy's respective mother actresses either had poor scripts or cheesy acting skills. The inclusion of Andy's orphaned child was an outlier that truly did not belong in the script.

Some of the scenes are long and boring, music that plays endlessly, while the shots remain still or zoomed in. It reminds me a lot of European filming. I did think Paul's role was well-done, a guy who steps into the gay world for only one night of his life. Andy is still lost throughout the whole movie, never finding himself, letting his future to be governed by "the universe".

The movie is okay, obviously nothing like Shelter, yet shows us an interesting twist on two unlikely souls that would ever cross paths, and yet still raises several good viewer questions -

Is Paul deep-down a straight man, yet perhaps longing for male love from men to replace the love that he never had from the father he never knew? And what about Andy? Is he really capable of being responsible for anything in his own life?

Finally, having played it over and over again several times, I could swear that it is not really Nate who is kissing Andy in the hotel scene, but a double for Paul Preiss who plays Nate in this scene. The reason I say that is that the sideburns on Paul are hardly existent, due to his Marine haircut. Yet, in the single intense kissing scene with Andy, the guy has more hair, has sideburns, and does not appear to be as strong as Paul. Only when Nate lays on his back on the hotel bed can one see the immediate differences in haircuts. Not only that, the lip structures on both men appear to be different.

I could be wrong, but it looks like a stand-in double for Paul Preiss who may have not wanted to quite get that intimate with Bart Fletcher. Or they were scenes shot at different times, allowing for haircut differences. Or, it's the lighting. Anyway, it made me wonder.