Golden Boy (2018)

“James” (Mark Elias) is down on his luck when casual acquaintance “Houston” (Logan Donovan) suggests that he might make a decent living working the park at night. That doesn’t prove very successful but on his way home, he encounters the wealthy “CQ” (Lex Medlin) whom he’d done some grocery deliveries for before. This man takes pity on the lad and invites him back to stay at his, platonically and no strings, until he gets on his feet. It all goes fine for a while, then he offers to pick up some slack in the man’s business and so begins a spiral of drug-infused activities that sees “James” end up asleep in a subway about to be robbed. Fortunately, jogger “Josh” (Paul Culos) is passing by, rescues him and takes him back to his apartment. Seems “James” has take me home eyes, and “Josh” just happens to be a player in the local gay basketball (that’s gay men playing rather than a particularly gay way of playing) team. As this young man becomes more ensnared in what is a fairly obvious “delivery” operation, his jobs become more perilous and his boss more manipulative. Meantime, “Houston” is also becoming more recklessly addicted, and things are building to quite a climax as “James” has some tough choices to make when the full extent of his obligations to “CQ” violently manifest themselves. Elias is quite decent here but the story is too contrived, there is a little too much dialogue and some of his choices are downright dumb as he vacillates between his “Jekyll” and “Hyde” personalities. There can’t have been much of a budget and that shows in the mediocre standard of the production and with most of the rest of the casting - especially the wooden Medlin and the fairly charm-free Culos. The conclusion is rushed and in the end I just felt it needed director Stoney Westmoreland to have taken a little more time pacing the film more consistently, with less preamble and more substance. It’s not a bad film, just messy and incomplete.