Finally, the nation has a gay super-spy to look up to! A witty pastiche of the Bond movies, Jayson Bend: Queen And Country is a short feature by up-and-coming filmmaker Matt Carter, made on a tiny budget with a lot of help from his friends. And it’s so inventive and hilarious that it’s bound to get audiences begging for more.
Jayson (the tall, ludicrously handsome Davis Brooks) is the top agent for the Royal Intelligence Ministry, known as RIM. His latest assignment is in Geneva, where businessman Raymond Perdood (Paul Norton) is up to something nefarious with scientist Dr Tu Yung (Chris Lew Kim Hoi). Jayson immediately hooks up, in every sense of the word, with his local contact Alex DeCoque (Tom Read Wilson), infiltrating Perdood’s lab and running into fiendish henchwoman Katya Khokov (Djalenga Scott).
Along with the pun-tastic names, every moment in this movie is a riot of queer double entendre, eyebrow-raising innuendo and sexually suggestive action. And it’s all done in a lively 007 pastiche style, including the lusty opening credits sequence complete with a soaring theme song. Andrew Faure’s script is relentlessly silly, while Carter’s direction punches all the right action beats with gay abandon.
The terrific fresh-faced actors make the most of every scene, then a closing-credits outtake reel shows how tricky it was to deliver this ridiculous dialogue with a straight face. And Carter’s attention to detail proves that you don’t need lots of cash to make an entertaining movie. After touring film festivals around the world, the hope is that Jayson’s adventures will continue in a feature-length movie. Carter is definitely a filmmaker to watch.
Since Jayson Bend: Queen And Country is only 48 minutes long, TLA have packaged it on DVD/VOD with two gay Mexican short films that have a very different tone. Boys On The Rooftop (Muchachos En La Azotea) is an S&M fantasy as a hot guy tries out a fetish for his boyfriend’s birthday. But it takes an unexpected turn. Lewd Acts (Actos Impuros) is a vintage short from 1993 that looks like a classic movie. It follows a young guy as he tries to be straight, but can’t help leering at hot coworkers in the showers. Things get extremely dark and melodramatic, and also steamy.
• Jayson Bend: Queen and Country is on DVD/VOD now.
