 Just
looking at the box made me feel a bit unnerved. In order to
explain (and to fill up space in this review), let’s
take a good look at the back of the box: “Within the
gay culture, ‘online cruising’ – going online
to meet other men and arranging an immediate, real-time sexual
encounter – is rapidly emerging as a prime pastime.”
Of course, the first thing that crossed
my mind was, “What, and straight people don’t
like sex?” I know the back of the box is supposed to
paint a sordid description that will attract an audience,
but Jesus. Suggesting that “gay culture” (whatever
the hell that actually means) consists of Internet-surfing
cock-mongers is a terribly broad statement. While I know there must be a few exceptions to the rule (hi, Morrissey),
aren’t most people on the Internet, regardless of race,
creed or sexuality, just cruising for pants-area contact anyway?
In fact, I decided to test my nagging feeling on the most
obvious of gay hook-up sites, gay.com to see just how accurate the box description is. Let’s
take a look!
Person 1: Are you familiar with "A city in
the sea"??
Person 1: A poem of his
Person 1: The city in the sea
Person 1: he wrote it in 1831
Person 2: Hmmmm, not familiar with that one
Person 2: It probably was dark-oriented
Person 1: "Lo! Death has reared himself a throne"
Person 2: Gothic poem
The
discussion of Edgar Allen Poe’s most famous work went
on for almost two hours before the chat site locked me out,
displaying a huge graphic for Colt Video. I don’t even
like Colt Video. So there you have it. An hour-long documentary
of people talking about nothing but frenzied sodomy, and all
I get is a discussion of poetry. I feel cheated.
But let’s get away from that whole sticky argument
and get to the actual film itself – Hooked is a short documentary on the subject of gay Internet cruising.
We meet face-to-face with a selection of men who, while varying
in race, age, size and shape, have a few  things in common:
they’re all obsessed with picking up guys off the Internet
for the soul purposes of sex, and they all have the ‘70s’
gay facial hair to prove it.
Okay, that might be an exaggeration. Only most of them have
awful facial hair. The rest have awful shaving burns and baseball
caps. Some are wild cards and have both facial hair and baseball caps.
If the general look of the participants seems fairly homogeneous,
what they have to say is downright repetitive. Most recount
their sexual awakening thanks to the Internet and how they
delved into the dark regions of their desires through Internet
hook-up sites. They eventually became desensitized, even emotionally
dead, after what they did. Sure the story is a worthy cautionary
tale, but I didn’t have to hear it a dozen times. Boo
hoo, you’re emotionally  dead inside ... and? Maybe you
should have realized this when you were soliciting strangers
for sex in the middle of the road at 3 a.m.? I’m probably
being a bit harsh – sexual addiction is probably a terrible,
terrible thing. In between the roadside face-fucking, that
is.
Even by the end of the film when they’re wrapping
up the stories of each person, it seems quite generic. Almost
every slow-motion shot is accompanied with a quote, usually
saying something like, “I found a boyfriend online and
haven’t been on the Internet recently.” Yawn.
At a short 60 minutes, Hooked still manages
to drag, with each person recounting the same thing, broken
up by gaudy techno and shots of long stretches of highway
– a metaphor that could probably be decoded by a child
with a head cold. Information Superhighway? More like Information
"Superhigh gay!"
 Presentation
Shot on consumer video equipment and even webcam footage, Hooked fares about as well as any recent
documentary. While some shots are filled with pixelation during
quick shots of still photographs, I’m certain that it’s
probably due to the source material, which are probably some
badly compressed JPG pictures. The webcam footage comes off
as surprisingly decent. On the audio side, the music is loud
– too loud. You’ll be reaching for your remote
as you turn the volume up whenever someone’s talking,
and back down whenever some techno music decides to rear its
ugly head and assault you with its heavy bass.
 Extras
You’d hope the disc would come with a commentary featuring
the participants, but sadly that’s not happening. You
get a dry commentary from director Todd Ahlberg,
who spends most of his time talking about the technical side
of the film rather than the people featured in the documentary
itself. Considering that the back of the box suggests that
there are 100 minutes of bonus features, I was ready to strap
in for some sort of feature-length making-of documentary,
but no, it was a simple five-minute travelogue discussing
director Ahlberg’s road trip around the country gathering
all the personal interviews himself. Also included is the
film’s theatrical trailer. The extras combined, including the commentary, do not add up to 100 minutes.
Overall
With a bit of editing, it could have been a decent 30-minute
cable special (LOGO could use something to pack in between
all those Erasure videos), but no. It’s a long, unfocused
60 minutes. Combine that with the tepid extras and you have
an easily skippable disc.
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