Hate Crime (2005)

I recognized a whole lot of character types in Hate Crime as I watched this film. It ought to be shown to various police departments as part of LGBT sensitivity training.Seth Petersen and Brian Smith are a gay pair who have a new neighbor move next door. When he finds out that Petersen and Smith are lovers Chad Donella becomes downright hostile. He's the son of local preacher Bruce Davision who takes his theology from the Fred Phelps school.While planning a commitment ceremony and remember this 2005 and Texas did not have same sex marriage legal then, Smith goes out walking their dog one night and never returns. He's found unconscious in the park as Matthew Shepard was and dies a few days later in the hospital in Dallas.The original cop on the case Farah White realizes this is a hate crime, but when it goes to homicide the new lead detective Giancarlo Esposito starts working on a new theory that Petersen killed his partner for the insurance.Back in my working days at Crime Victims Board in New York State I had a double claim for a lesbian couple. One was wounded and the other killed in a break in robbery. The cops in the Brooklyn precinct where this happened insisted it was something cooked up by the surviving partner and my agency would not pay because of that. By dumb luck they caught a burglar on another case and he confessed to the homicide and the other shooting as well. I can totally sympathize with the frustration that Petersen and Cindy Pickett, Smith's mother must have felt that led them to do what they did. Oh, we did eventually pay our wounded victim.It's good to remember that this is Texas where gun laws as we know are loose and the right to bear arms is held sacred. My attitude has always been that I've paid for the burial of a couple thousand homicide victims in my 23 years at CVB. Gun control to me seems a no brainer. But God help us if in the LGBT community we ever do an about face and decide maybe bearing arms is in our interest. Seeing what I've seen I'm amazed that something like what unfolds here hasn't happened in real life.As it turns out Chad Donella is a closet case and hates himself for it. Are there straight viewers of this film out there who don't think this is a recurring story? I give you Ronald Crumpley who one night in December of 1980 who was a closet case himself took an Uzi and shot several people congregating in front of the Ramrod and Sneakers bar on West Street in New York City. I two of those cases myself back in the day in my second year of service at the agency.This is a fine film and one can only that it is not a predictor of the future.

Within 5 minutes I thought: bleeh, sentimental crap. Perfectly nice normal gay couple, everybody in the neighborhood behaves normal too, the weather is bright, then an intolerant neighbor - from one of those extreme right Christian churches - moves in and things go wrong. Cry, cry. Well, not exactly. Things become more complicated, there are two nice twists and there is a quite satisfactory revenge. As the movie continues the scenes become more challenging, the characters more realistic and the acting better. Hate Crime is far from perfect - a lot of criticism in other reviews is correct. Still it's worth seeing once. Just make sure you survive the cringing beginning.

I saw this movie tonight. Thank god it was for a good cause ACOL in London Ontario. This movie was awful, every stereotype of gay men relationships and homophobia was trotted out so that somehow people might be able to identify with the characters. What a load of crap. What's even more annoying is that some will say oh you should support it cus its gay themed. BS I should support it because its good, it has value, not because of the subject matter. It's a damm shame is all I can say cus this subject has a great deal of potential and it could have been a great movie but alas it wasn't. Wow now they want me to rant on here for 10 lines about a movie that well frankly doesn't quite deserve that much attention, so I'll fill with nothing but this nonsensical crap. Crap on crap i guess the theme is.

I saw this film at the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and found it to be very good (even if sometimes somewhat predictable). Within the first 15 minutes or so, I had figured out who committed the crime.While I found the film to be of good quality, I also found it to be a bit disturbing. It seemed to want to show real Christianity as a stark contrast to hate-mongering fundamentalism, and for that it should be praised. But while it took great effort to show that there are Christians who aren't filled with hate and intolerance, it seemed to glorify attempts at revenge. I found the incongruency to be quite disturbing.It'd be a really good conversation starter.