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Like It Is (1998) | 
 enlarge | Director: Paul Oremland
Actors: Steve Bell, Ian Rose, Roger Daltrey, Dani Behr, Jude Alderson
Studio: First Run Features
Category: Video
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $5.92
You Save: $24.03 (80%)
Used (4) from $5.92
Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 45086
Format: Color, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6305495726
UPC: 720229908870
EAN: 9786305495727
ASIN: 6305495726
Theatrical Release Date: August 28, 1998
Release Date: May 9, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
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Amazon.com
Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck--the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging, or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathizing with. --Paula Nechak
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
Kindness & Acceptance May 10, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This rental was an interesting evening's entertainment. Steve Bell was a featherweight amateur boxing champion when he was cast in this part and does a great job bashing in the competition's faces for the camera. As Craig, he plays a guy whose parents have died and is trying to find his way in the world. He hangs outside of clubs and looks at the men going in and out, unable to muster up the nerve to enter. He runs into Matt, a music promoter, played by Ian Rose. Rose appeared in the 2006 film "Flyboys" & does a fairly good job here as the sympathetic friend who helps Craig become comfortable with himself. What most appealed to me about the film is the tolerance of it. Christopher Hargreaves plays Craig's older brother Tony who observes his risky boxing bouts and tries to understand him, despite repeatedly berating him. After we go through the on & off romance between Craig & Matt, Christopher unexpectedly shows his younger brother great kindness and acceptance. The film ends on an upbeat note with Matt choosing love over business and Craig offering forgiveness. Enjoy!
Beautifully British December 19, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"LIKE IT IS"
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
First Run Features released a few years ago a wonderful little movie called "Like It is". It s the story of Craig, a rough kid in Blackpool, England, who survives life by picking up cash as a bare-knuckle fighter. Together with that, he has a hard time accepting the fact that he is gay. One evening he meets Matt from London who works for a shady but very enterprising music producer. Matt lives with one of his clients who has her own problems and Craig goes to London to visit Matt and falls in love with him. This along with many other problems makes for a tenuous situation and is the meat of the movie.
Let me start by saying that the actors are wonderfully charming and there is an excellent balance of humor, drama, action and more quiet interludes. There are also wonderful studies of contrasts. Blackpool is bleak while London is full of color, a poor lifestyle is contrasted with the richer people, an environment of repression is set against the liberalism of a sophisticated environment. The changes affect Craig and his character is what holds the m0vie together. He wants and needs to change but his idealism is rooted in the mentality of the north of England with its innocence and simplicity. Craig (Steve Bell) gives an outstanding performance as the fighter who has trouble accepting himself. It is not often that a young actor can send out such a positive performance in his first film. Physically, he is exceptionally good looking but it is his acting that shows him off here. He carries himself with a masculine swagger while exhibiting great tenderness. As he struggles with his own homosexuality, he will be respected by the gays that see him and the straight audiences will marvel at his talents.
Roger Daltrey of "The Who" plays his part of Matt exceptionally well and with candor. The rest of the cast is just as good and this simple and enjoyable film shows the evolution of sex and love in a relationship of two men in London. It is the constant contrasts that are integral to the plot and they are what make the movie really work. Craig demystifies many gay stereotypes and that in itself makes this worthwhile viewing.
This is not a perfect movie by any means but what it is, is original. The fight scenes are e classic but not overly choreographed and thereby realistic. I would not say that the movie reaches the level of some of the fine things I have seen on the BBC but I do think it is not far behind.
The love story angle is used merely to illustrate the coming out theme of the film. As Roger Daltrey as the older gay male watches the younger man make mistakes he is taken back to his youth and sees what he missed and at what he succeeded.
There are male on male sex scenes as well and they are in no way lurid and exploitational. Rather they are representations of what two men feel for each other and add a great deal to the film. This is a movie to not only be seen but to be adored. To some it may hit very close to home and to others it will be just a pretty movie. Either of those are good reasons to watch it.
A Film Worth Seeing December 5, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
For years there were practically no movies with decent gay characters-- at least in these United States. Now we can hardly keep up with them, thanks to the advent of DVD's. "Like It Is" is one such film, not so much about coming out as coming to terms with your sexuality. Craig (Steve Bell) is a young man from Blackpool who has a rough and tumble time getting his life together. He falls for Matt (Ian Rose) who works for Kelvin (Roger Daltrey), an older, worldly conniving character who gets in the way of these two men and their relationship. Of course there is the obligatory girl friend type, in this case, Matt's roomie Paula.
This film, like many of this genre, has a low budget feel about it although a decent movie-- as this one demonstrates-- can be made without a lot of cash and fanfare. The actors, including Mr. Daltrey, give decent peformances. Craig-- a sometime bare-fisted boxer-- suffers a rather bloody boxing defeat but ultimately makes some progress in getting his act together, a step in the right direction.
Pretty boys, decent script, okay flick April 9, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
An unpredictable, complicated story about a boxer/criminal "ingenue" who hooks up with a gay promoter in the music biz. Dig the London scene, the accents, ways of speaking that are superficially different from Americans. Watching these English fellows, one can definitely see we share much the same blood. Recommended based mainly on the competent, if not witty or profound, script, and the superb acting skills of the too cute boxer dude. The music promoter guy is also cute but just a little too cognizant of being so. This film gets my typical affirmative action for gay films, an extra star over what it would otherwise get.
 So hilariously awful it deserves 5 Stars!!! December 17, 2005
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
I first saw this at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1998. I left feeling....'that's over now let's get to the pub'...in short I was quite indifferent to it. Several years later it was on TV one night and I watched it again....and I realised how atrocious it was. A year or so later I wtached it again and this time another reaction to the film developed within me.....it was actually - if unintentionally - funny. We have the seasoned Matt demonstrating what can only be described as the most laughably innacurate London accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Then we have Craig....a supposedly bare knuckle boxer who doesn't look as if he could knock his way out of a soggy brown paper bag. Enter Roger Daltrey....anyone remember 'Buddy's Song with Chesney Hawkes? Roger please keep to music; and I can only assume the Dani Behr character was created by the vilest imaginable mysoginist. If you don't set out to take the film seriously you can really enjoy it. Horrendous dialogue and acting that would make an infant school Nativity Play look like a RADA production. If any of them had been alive Sid James, Hattie Jacques and the rest of the 'Carry On' crew would have made the film truly complete. Marvellous!
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