O Fantasma

August 26, 2006 at 5:33 pm | 2 Comments »

Netflix shipped the Portuguese-language O Fantasma weeks ago but I just let it sit. I knew the 2000 release had been unrated and the description sounded like it wouldn’t be the kind of movie to watch on the laptop out in public.

I finally ran it at home last night and my hunch proved correct. It’s really little more than a string of not-so-soft porn scenes featuring the extraordinarily handsome Ricardo Meneses and a parade of different male partners. The plot, and I’m being charitable using that term, is largely implied and mostly incoherent. Basically Meneses plays an obsessive Lisbon sanitation worker who finds sexual encounters around every corner. One of the first scenes shows him coming across an old Volvo in a field. He opens the backdoor to find a handcuffed and gagged uniformed policeman. Rather than calling for help and even asking the officer if he’s okay, Meneses character proceeds to open the cops fly and jerk him off.

But then who wouldn’t?

Whoever packaged the English-language DVD must have had some insight into the disc’s potential target because the special features includes a section titled Eye Candy. It provides short cuts to all the sex scenes so you can get your fill of the uncut Meneses without having to even pretend you care about the main feature’s narrative.

---