THE SEX OF THE ANGELS

Bruno is a struggling student who gets mugged in a Barcelona street when he is watching a breakdance performance, and Rai one of the dancers comes to his rescue. There is an immediate bond between these two men who also happen to be very hot.  (I know that’s very shallow, but it’s that kind of movie). Rai puts the moves on Bruno who backs away in a panic as he has a girlfriend Carla whom he loves very much (she’s also very hot).

Bruno is straight and Martial Arts Teacher Rai is maybe gay or just perpetually horny or both, and very quickly their new friendship gets physical. Well, sexual actually.  They get caught in flagrante delicto by Carla who naturally has a hissy fit.  Bruno moves out of the apartment they share and goes to live with Rai in the country.  That new arrangement lasts about a week when they both realize that he misses Carla too much for this to work.

Carla meanwhile is so distraught that she can hardly function on a day to day basis, much to the chagrin of her colleagues on the small struggling magazine where she works, and which is in danger of folding.  Its never clear if their real sympathies are with her, or the very fact that most of them also fancy Rai.  (Did I mention that he is hot?)

Rai persuades Carla to take Bruno back on the understanding that he can still see him on the side too.  She agrees to this because she thinks a part time Bruno is better than no Bruno, but she soon discovers she is way too jealous of Rai’s relationship with him for this new arrangement to ever work.  She befriends her ‘rival’ and ends up falling for him physically and he does for her too (I did mention he is hot, didn’t I?).  And before you can say W.T.F., now Carla leaves Bruno and runs off to the country with Rai.

I really wanted to like this new take on a menage a trois but the problem is that all three of the protagonists are barely skin deep. Albeit very pretty skin.  They are such lightweights that it’s hard to really empathize with them at all, especially self-centered Rai who needs to fulfill his very active sex drive at any cost.  I will credit director Xavier Villaverde for the fact that unlike most movies that feature bi-sexuality, he doesn’t flinch away from the man-on-man action which was both intimate and convincingly real.

If you like your romantic melodramas to have a happy ending then you will be OK with this one, except I am still convinced that once the credits stopped rolling, that Claudia would have start whining again as she just couldn’t help herself.

P.S. I still cannot fathom out why they chose this title.  They were hot (did I mention that?) but hardly angelic.

★★★★★