Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997)

Off Broadway we go for this adaptation of Terrance McNally's Tony 
Award-winning play, about eight gay men who spend three long week-
ends together in a gorgeous country home in the summer.  For a few 
fleeting days at the lake, they laugh, love, fight, flirt, and deal 
with death.  Once you get past the various stereotypes (and the 
various "swishy riffs" of some of the actors), the real emotions 
begin to surface.  It takes about an hour, right around the time 
that "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander appears wearing an apron and 
nothing else.  He plays the flamboyant Buzz, in Nathan Lane's old 
role, and, given that Alexander is shot from behind in said scene, 
I guess we should all be thankful that the part didn't go to his 
television co-star Wayne Knight.  With Stephen Bogardus, Justin 
Kirk, John Benjamin Hickey, Stephen Spinella, John Glover, Randy 
Becker, all of whom appeared in the original play.  (Rated "R"/115 
min.)

Grade: B

Originally posted to triangle.movies in MOVIE HELL: June 13, 1997