Joe Smith While I applaud Bellhollow's efforts to help this film, it cannot fix the blatant, and untrue, stereotypical portrayal of gay men, lawyers and Boston (where filmed). The story is not realistic, the acting is beyond poor and the dialogue strained. It has hard to have any empathy for the lead character, portraying a lawyer focused only on the material things without having to do any work. His friends are no better, although they seem to offer something of a Greek chorus with nothing to add. No sympathy for the plain-looking, "good guy" boyfriend, who is just as shallow as the others characters. These are 90 minutes of my life I will never get back.

purestblue1 OK,I know this is cheating, but here's a review from Gemma Files of Eye magazine, who pretty much could sum this up better than I..."Whenever I watch a particular type of movie, the same two thoughts invariably occur to me: why are there so many boring, self-obsessed people in this world -- straight, gay or otherwise -- and why do so many of them seem to think we're all waiting on pins and needles to see films made out of their boring, self-obsessed love lives? Case in point: writer-director Roland Tec's All the Rage, adapted from his stage play A Better Boy. Chris (John-Michael Lander) is a (debatably) hunky gay lawyer who specializes in drawing up wills and having frequent, meaningless sex with guys whose numbers he immediately loses. Eventually, this slick little toad meets up with a nice guy named Stewart (David Vincent) who doesn't work out, knows about baseball and ballet and sends Chris flowers with sickly-sweet poems attached. Is it love? Will their equally shallow friends let them get away with it? Will Chris cheat on Stewart with the first pair of pants that walks by or will he actually -- heavens to Betsy! -- get a quick evolutionary life lesson by having his heart broken for a change? From a purely technical viewpoint, All the Rage is inept film-making at best: everybody on screen talks and looks almost exactly the same, which doesn't help make the oh-so-predictable plot any less stultifying. Working with next to nothing in the way of funding, Tec apparently wants to trade on the idea that low- to no-budget automatically equals "arty." But this is basically an exploitation film with socio-political pretensions, and all the constant bewailing of loneliness and promiscuity in the world won't make his characters' obsessions with each other's baskets seem any less sleazy.A waste of time, and pretty much unsalvageable on every level. If the choice is between All the Rage and watching paint dry, save me a seat in front of the nearest wall." -- GEMMA FILES

ajhuggs This film is a very good satire of life in the 90's for gay men. The acting is a bit tireless, yet when taken into context of the genre of the satire, then it places well. John-Michael Lander is very convincing as the 'gay-god' that has decided to fall in love and yet can't give up his other life. This film should be on the list of the "Gay Must-See"

bsfl I went with a group of friends, and those who were expecting a comedy (romantic or otherwise) were sorely disappointed. This movie is a merciless indictment of a certain superficial, vicious subgroup within the gay community. In fact, if this movie were your entire view into the gay subculture, it would probably justify the whole ex-gay movement for you. (The character of Stewart probably signed up with Exodus after the events in this film.) It reminded me of Larry Kramer's Faggots in the way it tried to address the lack of genuine feeling and community within its target group.While I agree that the acting and technical aspects of this film are sorely lacking, I had no problem ignoring the form and focusing on the content. Yes, it's just a movie about a cad who happens to be gay, but I can't think of another movie with this subject in the past 20 years. Most gay films these days seem afraid to turn a mirror on any part of its audience and say "you are the villain", which this movie does. I found it quite difficult to sit through the first half hour, during which we are introduced to two despicable gay men (Christopher and Larry) and two merely insufferable ones (Tom and David). Once Stewart showed up though, it was easier to feel something (other than disgust) for someone in this film, even though it was pretty inevitable what was going to happen to the poor guy.As for the ending, it was no more out-of-left-field than the ending of Looking For Mr Goodbar, and at least no one wound up dead for no good reason in this movie (although even suggesting it might happen was a big mistake on the director's part).