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Review: The Good American

Your average pro-business Republican might take exception

By PETER KEOUGH | May 6, 2009

3.0 Stars

By most accounts, Tom Weise is a good American: he arrived in New York from Berlin 15 years ago and started a company that is now the biggest of its type in the world. But your average pro-business Republican might take exception upon learning that Weise is an illegal immigrant and HIV-positive and his company is "rentboy.com," a gay-escort service. Jochen Hick's engrossing, fascinating documentary follows Weise as he's forced to return to Germany and tries to expand his business by organizing a "HustlaBall" — an annual celebration of gay hustlers he had established 10 years earlier in the United States — in Berlin. The film interweaves the personal (Weise's relationship with his long time-companion, his second thoughts about his career, his struggle with illness) with such broader issues as gay rights here and abroad, and it doesn't stint on the sex (which includes a novel way of "housewarming" a new apartment).

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Topics: Reviews , lgbt film festival 2009, LGBTfilm

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