Queer human rights are never earned permanently. They are always under threat of attack from wrong ´uns, never more so than right now with the various right-wing fanatic governments around the world, including Trump’s Republican Party. Sometimes it feels as though we are heading back to the homophobic 1980s Reagan era. This makes director David Stoddart´s 1980s Bruce Willis-esque queer action drama Lone Star Bull very relevant for now.

Fans of Canadian Hallmark hunk Luke Macfarlane (Bros, Brothers & Sisters, Kiilljoys) are in for a treat as he plays Bull Jackson, a gay, former military veteran turned bouncer, at a busy queer Savannah, Georgia nightclub. His nights are busy, surrounded by feisty drag queens, sexy gogos and punters, and marauding rednecks out to cause trouble. One night, the club’s owner and host Coco (Bryan Batt) gets shot in the head in the club’s parking lot after the club has closed. Bull is determined to hunt down those responsible. Using his former military skills, and accompanied by an unlikely partner in crime, the chaotic drag queen/nursing student Jordan (DJ Shangela Pierce – Ru Paul’s Drag Race), he sets off on a complex journey to find out the truth of what happened that night.

Stoddart knows how to grab our attention. With quality opening scenes including a shirtless MacFarlane working out in a rural outdoor home gym with Bronski Beat´s classic Smalltown Boy playing in the background and a nightclub scene featuring a drag lip-synch to X-Ray Spex´s genius Oh Bondage Up Yours, any concerns that this might be a duff movie are immediately dispelled. What follows is a dramatic journey touching on themes such as conversion therapy, homophobia, politics, political hypocrisy, closet cases, and what actually entails queer community. ¨You think we’re the same because we both suck dick, but I am nothing like you¨ notes Jackson dryly to his drag partner in crime. Lone Star Bull´s plot, cinematography, and script echo many of the best tropes of

1980s film-making – action-packed fight scenes, various baddies, dark neon-lit nights with a backdrop sound of chirping crickets, an unlikely matched duo investigating crimes, plans that go wrong, and the fight between good and evil. This could easily have ended up a little cheesy, but high production values, a good, unpredictable plot, great sets, and strong casting prevail. The 1980s echoes remind us that without a fight to maintain queer human rights, we could easily end up back in that dark decade. MacFarlane is, of course, very easy on the eye, and luckily for us his journey takes us via a bathhouse, a rodeo, and his gym.

A great film, Lone Star Bull seems to have somewhat slipped under the queer radar so far, so make sure you seek it out. You won’t be disappointed.