Raspberry Reich Review - V31 Sept/Oct 2004

The Revolution will be Scandalized

Having already spent much of his career as an indie filmmaker fetishizing hustlers and skinheads, Bruce LaBruce decides to get all political in his new film, The Raspberry Reich, by taking on socialism and gay sex. Like his previous work, Raspberry is, for all intents and purposes, pornographic in nature, but this time around the sex is surrounded by a plot that includes a German terrorist organization bent on destroying (or, at least annoying) bourgeouis capitalism through homosexual revolution. Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses! The terrorists, led by a manifesto-spouting woman named Gudrun, decide to kidnap the son of a wealthy industrialist in order to further their cause, with distastrous (and very gay) results. Falling somewhere between satire and skin flick, the film is not without it's charms (the cheeky political propaganda is often very funny, and those who like to see hot European men have sex will be happy), but ultimately the film might not be sexy enough or funny enough to merit sitting through it's 90 minutes of naughty terrorist chic. However, those with unfulfilled Patty Hearst fantasies will find the whole thing impossibly hot.

-T. Cole Rachel

The Raspberry Reich will be released this fall by Strand Releasing.