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At first glance, the phrase 'eating out' evokes thoughts of consuming food somewhere other than at the kitchen table. Upon further musings, however, it carries overtones at which our Puritan ancestors would frown. After five minutes of watching the film Eating Out, it is quite clear writer and director Q. Allen Brocka is thinking of the latter.
What ultimately belongs on late-night cable but has a Saved by the Bell mentality to it (and an equally good-looking but talentless cast), Eating Out is really a longer and cruder version of a Will & Grace episode; it's full of witty innuendo and anatomical humor, but it's cramped into an underwhelming American Pie-like plot.
Simple-minded Caleb (Scott Lunsford) and his gay but shy roommate, Kyle (Jim Verraros), are single college students longing for affection, or at least recognition, from seemingly uninterested and unattainable objects of infatuation, Gwen (Emily Brooke Hands) and Marc (Ryan Carnes), respectively. Gwen and Marc are a pseudo-couple/roommates with a history; they once dated before Marc discovered he was gay. Gwen has a history of falling for gay men, or at least dating them, before they come out. Marc, on the other hand, is a sort of love-'em-and-leave-'em campus stud.
In order to gain love from their potential mates, Caleb and Kyle scheme up a strategy to propel themselves into the lives of Gwen and Marc. It seems fairly simple: Caleb will pretend he's gay and date Marc, who's interested, to get to Gwen. Kyle will rush in to comfort Marc after Caleb breaks Marc's heart by ditching him for Gwen. Gwen and Marc will overlook this hoax and realize their true feelings for Caleb and Kyle. It's really absurd and risky, but Caleb and Kyle are desperate enough to try anything.
Everything that could go wrong does in this four-way love parallelogram. Caleb's heterosexuality is threatened and he is forced to tell his parents he's out of the closet just to cover his lies. Marc suspects that Caleb's not on the level, Kyle begins to feel jealous and betrayed by Caleb, and Gwen falls for Caleb's act as well as for him, just so long as he remains gay. As Caleb's life becomes more confused, he considers honesty as the only way out.
While all of this may sound like the makings of a twisted drama or at least a romantic comedy, it is all done tongue-in-cheek. The clever but unprintable one-liners are the only things that will possibly keep you from spitting out this bland and unsweetened flick. Brocka shows promise as a writer if only he could give the audience something more to chew on than queer jokes and crass situations. A better use of time would be to actually go eat out rather than see Eating Out.
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