moturn This is a great story about, on the one hand, newly found love and friendship, but on the other hand, it's sadly about betrayal of friendship, damaging secrets and, let's face it, adultery, and the break up of a long-standing and seemingly happy marriage. With all this going on, perhaps it was better for the director to focus on Nathan (Dan Payne), Chase (Charlie David) and the Davidsons, and less on what as a subplot was happening between Chase and his new buddy Jarod (Anthony Joseph). Out-takes that I saw on YouTube, if restored to the film would clarify the "mateship" between Chase & Jarod, which was not wholly chaste. The director Chip Hale has stated that in the end, he chose to make Jarod straight, so a few scenes were taken out. Amongst them, was the scene where Chase & Jarod are tossing a football around at the barbecue. Before the cut, Jarod tackles Chase to the grass where he ends up on top of Chase kissing him, and a girl who went to get a drink for herself and Chase quietly stumbles upon them. Another outdoor scene showed Jarod pawing Chase who was torn now between his feelings for Jarod and Nathan, so Chase backs away from Jarod saying he "needs time" to sort things out.Yet in my mind, Jarod was queer from the beginning. Didn't you believe so? If one listens carefully, watches what happens when Jarod's around and reads between the lines of what's left in Mr. Hale's cut, there are enough hints that Jarod fancies Chase, and when the dust settles, he drives away with him.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU I like the film but maybe not for the good reasons. I like it because it is both sentimental and at the same time tense and dramatic. I like it because in the end they all manage to accept the real facts, the gayness of Chase and the gayness of the father forced to be straight for 20 years and revealing itself during the vacation with wife and children as witnesses. To be gay is hard, we all know that, especially for someone who has not been able to experience that kind of love for twenty years in spite of what he felt and knew he was feeling. I like this situation and the way it is dealt with by all the protagonists. The first one to go big bang is the mother but she negotiates the obstacle rather fast. The son will come second but he will find it hard to accept it and make up with his best friend after all. The father has it hard because a door opened and he could not even control what was happening. He is the one who did not think one single minute. He fell in love and ga-douche-bag down it went. He needs some time to try to find out sex is sex and love is love and that there is an enormous chasm between the two because they are not even the same thing, not even close cousins. The mind and the heart on love's side and the endocrine hormonal glands on the other side. It is sad but understandable for a forced straight monk till the ripe age of 38.I like that piece of dialogue that reveals how hard it is in our society to just accept love is a passion of the mind and the heart and not of some other appended organs.Tyler is the son and Chase is his best friend, who is gay though Tyler does not know it yet.Tyler Davidson: I love you man, like a brother... just... Chase Rousseau: I know, no sword fights. Tyler Davidson: Maybe we can find a more macho way of saying it... Chase Rousseau: ...Go Steelers? Tyler Davidson: Yeah, Go Steelers, I like that. Go Steelers. Wow I never said I love you to a guy before. Chase Rousseau: Me either. Tyler Davidson: Good talk.But that's the reasons why I like the film but they are false reasons indeed. And the real reasons I should consider may make me dislike the film.The first one is that the older man falls in love with a younger man, his own son's best friend, at once, without hardly one moment of hesitation, without courting the younger man, having some value or quality time with him, exchanging ideas, feelings, emotions, literature or whatever that has nothing to do with sex but everything to do with knowing the other and letting the other know who you are. Within five minutes on the screen, without any exchange of anything but a few looks, the older man starts undressing the younger man. Things may happen like that but it does look and sound like rape or at least hygienic hormonal milking. Sorry but I am a romantic somewhere and when two people meet, even if they fall in love at first sight, they have to spend some energy and time finding about each other, and they generally do. It is too much like: "I am… I know. Hug, First kiss. Second kiss. Older man undresses younger man." At least the older man does not seem to be shy, for a closet gay man for ever since his birth, he is catching up on the fast track.The second one, and this is a pattern in many films, is that the mother explodes first and then she is the first one to come to terms with the situation. She may pretend she knew the unexpressed sexual orientation of her husband, it does not explain the violence and then the acceptance. She should have been waiting for that moment of revelation, that epiphany all the time. I do not say she could have helped before it came all by itself, hence by accident, but she could not be surprised, not to mention angry and violent, even if only in words and packing a suitcase, because she knew it was going to come sooner or later in today's world of course. Twenty years ago things were different, but she lives in this here modern world with our TV and the Internet. The third one is the superficial acceptance of gayness, as long as it is abstract, by everyone, even the son who is told by Chase himself and in private that he is gay. As soon as it becomes real they all lose their footing. And this time again it is the mother who completely scatters her marbles with her younger daughter when on the beach the girl is looking at the penis that a friend of hers her age is showing her. Then she scatters them again because the girl is fond of her tennis instructor, a woman, after the first lesson. She is afraid of the word lesbian. And her defense is so weak: I have nothing against it but I do not want my daughter to be like that. And it is this mother who accepts after all rather easily her husband's gayness. Unbelievable. I am afraid that tolerant surface is there only to teach the audience a few lessons about the subject. It is pure ideological wrapping. But the film is quite entertaining, though we know from the very start who is who and who is going to go with whom. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

pavarotcheusa I watched this movie at a Movie Festival and, along with the whole audience, I gave it a standing ovation. Afterward, several of us voiced the fact that we were so proud of finally seeing a gay movie with such an impacting and, nonetheless, real life theme put together in a smart, witty, realistic, and inspiring way. I've been a fan of Charlie David and Thea Gill for some time. And now, I'm amazed at the talented Dan Payne who did a phenomenal job playing the closeted mid-aged (never too late!) father of the family, who decides to go for the "cliff jumping"decision of being his real self, no matter the cost. A role that many of us can relate to. I can't wait to have it at home for movie night with family and friends. Definitely thumbs up!

westphillyberger Imagine "GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER," but with sexuality instead of skin color as the inciting element...Both movies force their socially progressive characters to prove just how tolerant they really are, while putting the characters' unconditional love for each other to the test. "MULLIGANS" differs in that it also involves cheating and deception, thus muddying the moral waters... In the end, this heart warming story manages to successfully tackle some pretty tough issues of family, friendship, fidelity, identity, and of course... SEX!