Title: Buckback Mountain Studio: Buck Angel Entertainment/Lucas Entertainment Director: Lawrence Roberts Cast: Buck Angel, Lobo, Mylo Deren, Sean Steele Genres:: Gay, Bisexual, Drama, Hermaphrodite, Latin, Oddities, Oral, Transsexual Condoms: Yes Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Buck Angel is a big guy with a bald head and a reddish handlebar 'stache. Black tattoos cover his arms, chest, back and abdomen. He's also billed as "the world's first female-to-male transsexual porn star," and instead of a standard-issue dick, he's got a sort of dual-purpose crotch, with both a pussy and an elongated, dick-like clit. He's the star of Buckback Mountain, a take on Hollywood's Brokeback Mountain.

Angel has been quoted elsewhere saying he wants to make legit porn and not just be seen as an oddity. Maybe that's why he and his team have taken such pains to preserve the earnest tone of the original film and avoid a campy parody. Even the DVD menu screen is "classy," with a folksy sad country song playing over a pink and blue dawn. It's probably the freakiest element of the whole DVD, leaving viewers to wonder what solemn low-budget epic they've popped in the player when all they wanted was to bust a nut.

The film follows the first half of the original pretty closely—maybe too closely, with long, boring stretches throughout. Two ranch hands—Angel and the silent, brooding latino Enis (played by the smooth and humpy Lobo)—are hired to camp out in the middle of nowhere.

Before they hook up, Angel takes care of his own needs one day while Enis is out chasing sheep. After fucking himself dizzy with a dildo, he trips as he's leaving the tent and hurts his knee. To help kill the pain, he and Enis break out the whiskey. Later, the two cowboys huddle together for warmth and suddenly clothes are flying off, and the more familiar porno synth music replaces the guitar strumming.

So how does this movie work for a gay viewer who might normally have little interest in watching "straight" fucking? Well, as you watch Angel moan and push a man's head down to eat him out, you start figuring out what it is about male sexuality that's attractive to you: maybe it's the look on a man's face when he's in ecstasy, or maybe it's the sight of a hairy, masculine jaw stretching open to suck on a hard cock. Buck Angel meets these qualifications. And if you've got a thing for leather daddy types especially, or for trucker types, he fits the bill nicely.

But then he's got no cock, at least not in the traditional gay porn sense, by which I mean a thick, fat 7-inch-or-longer dick that's primed and ready to stick into things. He's got a vagina. It's not gross or off-putting—if anything, it makes you appreciate sexuality, especially male sexuality, on a broader level. But my brain danced between being aroused and being intrigued. I'm not saying I wouldn't want to fuck Angel if given the opportunity, but on the other hand I think I'd miss the sword fighting. At any rate, I missed seeing it while watching Buckback Mountain. Also, and maybe this is a clichéd guy thing to say whether you're straight or gay, but I missed the anal sex.

Lobo is quite sexy, and Sean Steele tops Angel in a final scene wearing just a cowboy hat, boots, and a grin, with his jeans pulled down around his ankles. Mylo Deren, however, is an acquired taste. He's tall and skinny, and next to Angel he looks like he's 7 1/2 feet tall and 95 pounds. He also makes the funniest faces I've ever seen in a porno—a mixture of grimacing, eyebrow shrugs, awkward glances into the camera, and self-conscious glances at himself and anything else within view.