So, was the point of this movie just to be a gay version of Romeo/Juliet

*Juliet

It was an all-male cast... what did you expect?

Amateur is hardly the word to use when the cast actually has stage experience in Shakespearean roles. Also, how does it not register that "takes place at an all male military school" equals "gay Romeo and Juliet"?

In Shakespeare's time, males were the only one who could perform and thus an all male cast performed R&J. If you weren't able to appreciate this movie at all due to an all male cast, then I don't think you fully grasp Shakespeare's plays.

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. Quotation from Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser

I once saw a modern day version of Julius Ceaser at the Old Globe in San Diego. The cast wore modern commando uniforms. This performance took an old play in a new direction. Perhaps commando uniforms are cheaper than authentic historical wardrobe, still it was an interesting wrinkle in the show.

Here Private Romeo chose a military school setting, and instead of feuding families, we had feuding factions on campus. It reminded me somewhat of that Old Globe performance.

I don't understand why you call Private Romeo cheap. Certainly it was not a big budget movie, yet the performers were quite talented. The movie's lines were nearly all true to Shakespeare.

I did expect that many were likely to have your response, either not liking Shakespeare or not liking gay affection. But in Shakespeare's day, all performers on stage were male.

If it matters to you, and it I expect it does, almost all of these male performers in Private Romeo are not gay.

For me, Private Romeo was a success.

There is a word that is often used to describe 'big idea' movies that I feel is hardly warranted. It is often used as a synonym for "I didn't get it." However, I must use the word to describe Private Romeo; pretentious.

I am a gay man and knew what I was getting into here. I also know my Shakespeare and that at the time, only men were allowed to act onstage ("Shakespeare in Love" shows this perfectly). Low budget with big ideas and great talent, parallels between the classic tragedy and today, and other ideas I was hoping to see. I was looking forward to seeing how the story could transcend into a gay love story today as well as one that took place at a military academy. However, there was nothing at stake. Obviously, no one cared (and in a perfect world, they shouldn't) that two cadets are gay. Also, I saw absolutely no division between except for an occasional wardrobe trick (i.e. red handkerchief, blue shirt, etc.). In the original text, we have two constantly feuding families, and two young lovers see each other and develop a relationship despite being told well before the action of the play begins that the other family is terrible. So, what were the two families here? Were they two different military academies? Nope, it was just the one. Was there any apparent division in the academy? Nope. Well, if there was it was absolutely not clear in any way to me. I actually had to keep referring to my text to know which character from what family was saying what to whom and why. If one doesn't have the text present or have it memorized, this would probably be unnecessarily confusing. I can fully understand why you would give up after an hour. I wanted to as well, but since I paid to rent it I stuck through the last half hour or so.

Back to the major dramatic question here: What is at stake if these two are allowed to be in love versus not being allowed to be in love? Nothing, apparently. When there isn't anything at stake I get bored and annoyed.

The actors all did very good work, but I don't think a "Glengarry Glen Ross" cast could have saved this movie. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of diversity in the cast. Seven out of eight were white, so we don't even get a slight commentary on race (since there wasn't one on sexuality, no women were in the cast so gender was off the table). I could ordinarily excuse this if the story was told well. But there was nothing.

Having the setting take place in the modern day is not a bad idea. I think the writer/director subscribed too much to the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' school of thought, keeping the original Shakespearean text practically verbatim with some modern lines thrown in here and there. This doesn't make the movie pretentious to me. What makes it pretentious is that there were scenes juxtaposed of English literature class wherein they read the original text. So why were they talking in tandem with the text when we were supposed to believe the lines came naturally to them? What was the point of the classroom scenes if they didn't change the dialogue in all the other scenes? "He's hiding amongst the trees here" Mercutio says at one point. I replied, "You're in a hallway. There are no *beep* trees!"

Look, there is nothing wrong with updating a story to a different setting to use it for a different meaning than was originally intended. But you must be willing to actually update it, not just change the setting as well as a couple superficial (to the story) details and hope everything just happens to fall into place. You aren't saying that you are smarter than Shakespeare by changing the lines. You are just saying, "That worked then. This is what I want to work NOW." You're also not putting Shakespeare on a pedestal as a person you can only hope to imitate well and never even attempt to surpass. I'm not saying Shakespeare was a bad writer, and I'm not saying he's the greatest writer ever. That's in the eye of the beholder. But if you're going to take a story he wrote and update it, I'll say it again, you have to UPDATE THE DAMN THING.

In the end, I saw nothing special about this version other than the actors doing well enough. Honestly, I was a little offended that the male Juliet kept being referred to as a woman (as well as Nurse) and took the 'woman' role in the relationship (when they were spooning, 'she,' of course, was Little Spoon). I didn't even think of Shakespearean actors being all male at that time because the story was taking place now. They were clearly men, so why refer to one as a woman just because he is to fulfill the role of Juliet?

I found myself thinking of a much, much, much better film version that updated Romeo and Juliet. It is "Warm Bodies," and the story was told with wit, original ideas, wonderful parodies such as the balcony scene, a lot at stake, and two feuding 'families' who had every right to feud until we were challenged to think differently. "Private Romeo" only challenged me to think of "Warm Bodies" and how great that movie was.