The 24th Day (2004)
6/10
The hedonist and the closet case
12 April 2017
Two very hunky hunks Scott Speedman and James Marsden star in this mostly two person drama about Speedman who invites Marsden to trick with him and then holds him prisoner.

Speedman holds Marsden responsible for the fact that he now tests positive for AIDs. As he originally states his one and only venture into gay sex was with Marsden who gave him the HIV virus. To prove it he takes some of Marsden's blood and sends it away to a laboratory to be tested. If it comes back negative as Marsden says it will, he'll just be let go, if not Marsden will die a lot quicker than he will.

Marsden is a cheerful hedonist who's not ashamed about it and claims he always uses protection. Speedman is one man most deep in the closet and even the most naive know that Marsden could hardly be the only one he tricked with even while at one time being married to a woman. In fact it's his wife's death that has put him over the edge.

People like to have a tangible villain to assign blame when things go wrong. In point of fact it's internalized homophobia among LGBT people and an uncaring and indifferent government who didn't treat this as a matter of science, but listened to voice's religious fundamentalists who said that AIDS was a curse from the Almighty on certain people He didn't like and not to interfere. It's the explanation that best describes Speedman's actions. Speedman wants desperately to have Marsden as that tangible villain.

Sad to say that this is still a relevant drama for today, not something left in the 80s or in 2004 when The 24th Day was released. Marsden and Speedman do quite well in these roles and this is a film worth seeing.
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