Daniel Lombroso’s new documentary MANHOOD is billed as a film that explores the cosmetic penis enlargement industry and modern American masculinity. However, it wanders seemingly aimlessly at times, with a cast of very questionable characters so much so that we wanted to retitle it ‘How to Be a Dick’ in every sense of the word.   What starts as a blatant plug for Dallas entrepreneur Bill Moore, as he tries to make cosmetic girth enhancement (specifically the PhaloFILL procedure) as casual and commonplace as Botox, ends up as a messy cut (excuse the pun) on the cutting floor.

Moore spends most of his screen time disparaging a competitive urologist for filling penises up with some unknown substance to give more girth.  The fact that the main ‘victim’ is a pretty young man who ends up doing porn on OnlyFans and moves in to be the live-in boyfriend of Moore and his partner makes this all so much stranger than fiction.  Then there is the case of Ruben, who is so in debt he has to move his current wife and children in with his previous baby mama and their children, but somehow finds the money to get his dick injections.  At one point, the overweight Ruben tells us he would rather work on his penis than his biceps 

Moore, who has had his own fair share of cosmetic surgery, says straight to camera that no one ever thinks he is in his 50s (!) and he is determined to make his patented version of penis enhancement as popular as breast implants are for women.  He justifies his actions with yet another humdinger of a line to show how caring he is about the men who come looking for his help    “I can fill your penis with filler but I can’t fill the hole in your heart”

The movie is actually a minefield of some great clichés, which is a nice distraction from the sight of one too many shriveled-up penises.  The best one comes at the end of a conversation justifying the masculine desire of having a big penis: “being masculine is why we don’t speak German!”

You will want to cross your legs when you watch this one