Men Cry Bullets (1999)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Girls Just Want to Have Guns

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

I was hoping that this new movie by Tamara Hernandez -- which plays midnights at the Roxie beginning Friday and Saturday, November 12 and 13 -- would be as good as its poster. It shows star Honey Lauren in a leopard skin leotard and a Bettie Page wig pointing a gun at us with two meek-looking boys clutching her knees. In the foreground is the ever-alluring Jeri Ryan, now world-famous as Seven-of-Nine on TV's "Star Trek: Voyager." It turns out that Men Cry Bullets is not so much a John Waters-meets-Russ Meyer trash fest as it is a very good look at destructive relationships, albeit with a few weird twists.

Lauren stars as Gloria, a self-proclaimed slut who doesn't do much except raise her pet pig Jack and date a well-built paper boy (Michael Mangiamele). Gloria tells us that she's "too dead inside to hold onto any emotion for any length of time." Into her life walks Billy (Steven Nelson), an ultra-sensitive drag queen, and Lydia (Ryan), Gloria's sexy debutante cousin from Texas. The three of them play emotional push-me-pull-you until everything ends in violence. A lesser movie would make fun of these weirdos, but Men Cry Bullets seems to care about them. It should make for a trippy midnight experience.