Main cast: John Baumgartner (Mike), Clint Ashley (Grant), Zac Taber, Cory Kaster, Vicky Kors, Michael Lyon, Michael Parker, Maurice Maxwell, and Anthony Todero
Director: Gael Richards

I don’t know what Murder in Portland is. Is it some tawdry gay soft porn movie? I thought this would be a gay crime movie when I came across it, but the entire movie is incoherently acted and so shoddily put together that I’d settle for calling it a steaming pile of dung. No, wait, “steaming” would suggest that there is some kind of heat, a sign of life in this movie. Let me amend that to “a lifeless cold pile of dung without any cursory warm-up”.

The movie starts off with a young lad Mike being driven out of his trailer home by his father who angrily calls him “Sodomite!” He gets a few dollars from a kindly lesbian woman (everyone in this story is gay, by the way) and ends up in… uh, somewhere, where he ends up in bed with some fellow named David. Then David’s friend Mike is murdered. Then there is this cop who starts off straight but while investigating the case ends up sleeping with… uh… wait a minute, where did that man come from anyway?

Throughout it all, the acting is heinous beyond belief. Some of these guys actually steal glances at the direction of the camera when they are supposed to be talking to each other. They even look at the camera now and then during the many sex scenes in this movie. What is this? Where do these horrible actors come from? Maybe they need the money from this acting gig to pay their way through drama school. Heaven knows, these guys need acting lessons badly. That or a new calling altogether. The acting quality is putrid, simply putrid. These guys act as if this is the first time they are reading the script aloud – to the camera as the film is rolling.

Speaking of the sex scenes, oh yes, I suppose that perhaps this is what the movie is good for. Even so, I have to warn you guys, the men here are actually average in looks and, you know, in size down there. If you are expecting an adult film featuring four-feet tall muscle beefcakes with thirty-inch penises, this is not the film for you. While I can only admire these guys’ willingness to drop every stitch of clothing to show everything to the camera, I have to say that it is hard to believe that a sex scene is steamy when both men involved in the act are seen clearly flaccid. Or when a man is simulating penetration in an angle that is clearly impossible unless the other person has a seriously prolapsed anus. And really, I don’t think they are supposed to move that way unless they are cycling.

Seriously, they can’t even get any of the fake sex scenes right. What good is this movie for, you ask? I don’t know. Landfill material, I suppose.