SnoopyStyle Government action against homosexuals leads to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in NYC. Danny Winters is a runaway from Indiana. He is befriended by Ray and his group of gay friends. They struggle to find a place in the world.Everybody is played over the top including the flat doe-eyed Danny. There is only so many Danny jaw drops that I can take. It's overwrought at almost every point. I want to say it's unflinching but it's more like pulp fiction. There are hints of artificiality which are the flat notes of this historical drama. The struggles of the fictional Danny Winters in his home town could be a compelling story by itself. Roland Emmerich's insistence of tying it to the Stonewall Riots is questionable. It's like saying the history cannot be comprehended without a white middle America protagonist. Ray is a more compelling character. The plot is also overstuffed which sidetracks the story and drags the pacing. This is problematic especially considering the needs of this important history.

donegalcat I was reluctant to watch Stonewall as I had read much of the criticisms regarding the whitewashing of the historical events. And the criticisms were born out. The Stonewall Inn in the film is overwhelmingly populated by young white men with the lead role going to a white, Midwesterner, new to New York, escaping his small homophobic town. The narrative of this character is a worthwhile story to be told and could have made a decent film. But it does not fit with the story of Stonewall. The film sidelines the trans people, the drag queens, the lesbians, the Latinx and African Americans who played the central role in the actual events of Stonewall. They are given tokenistic roles, in a sop to history, presented there to be mocked and beaten while given no agency in the events of Stonewall.But even beyond the whitewashing of history, this is a poor film. The film, despite is 129 minute length feels far too short as there is no depth to any of its characters. They are merely tokens and plot devices. The plot piles on cliché after cliché. It feels like almost every LGBT film we have ever seen before.But almost worst of all, is that the Stonewall riot barely features in the film. The film is over two hours long, yet its central event lasts just a few minutes near the end of the film. And there is no real build-up to this climax in the way of say 'Do the Right Thing' which is a great film about life in New York.The only good things about this film are the acting performances of Jeremy Irvine and Jonny Beauchamp and a decent soundtrack.Other than that, it is predictable, clichéd and boring on top of whitewashing history. A shameful effort at portraying Stonewall.

cjmarbutt There are potentially two great movies here. One about a Midwestern kid growing up gay in the late sixties, the other about the Stonewall Riots. However, when you put the two movies together, it becomes one mediocre movie. Danny is a fictional character and ever minute spent on him and his fictional town takes away from actually telling the story of Stonewall and since the movie is named "Stonewall" we might expect it to be about, well, Stonewall. Meanwhile the characters that are based on historical people who were there are left as cardboard cut outs, propped up to move Danny's story along. Factor in that the police are actually portrayed as justified in raiding the bar towards the end and the lack of any actual serious romantic relationships on the parts of the leads and it is not hard to see why the LGBTQ community in general panned the film.

Mark Iaconetti I loved this movie. Even though the subject matter occurred about 15 years before I was the lead character, my experience was in Chicago, so the difference in the time-line was only about 10 years. Im not going to comment about the acting, direction, cinematography, etc, What I need to say, is that this, albeit earlier, is by far the most realistic portrayal of what my life was really like when I first started to experience the gay scene in Chicago. I am also from Indiana, which I thought was a funny coincidence. Many of the reviews refer to cookie cutter characters, or lisping portrayals of the gay characters. Honey, for the most part way back then, for whatever reason, there was a lot more effeminism (?) frequenting the tiny hole in the wall bars and that was still the case well into the 80's. If you want to know what it was really like for a person quite similar to Danny's character, ignore the poor (ridiculous) rating and reviews and watch this very accurate film!!! At least for how it portrays what gay life was really like. If not what the Stonewall riots were like, though from all the literature I've read it seems pretty spot on to me.