Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

guil fisher What better and more normal casting than to have an openly gay man play an openly gay character. Brilliant, Ron Oliver, also an openly gay director. With a terrific actor like Chad Allen, the story and direction has a natural flow to it. For once gay people aren't treated with kid gloves and hushed silence. They are represented as normal everyday people who happen to be gay. This I tribute to not only a wonderful scenario by Mark Saltzman, adapted from the gay detective series written by Richard Stevenson, but an excellent supporting cast backing up Allen's natural and genuine performance.Sebastian Spence plays his other half. Although he is straight (ugh I hate that word) he seems to easily work well with Allen. You can see the trust and enjoyment they have in their working relationship. Spence brings charm and humor to his Myrna Loy type role. In supporting roles there is Jack Wetherall, from QAF, playing a ruthless gay outer in the political fields. A good actor, and I hear also an acting teacher as well. Handsome well built Woody Jeffreys plays his lover and worth watching; the delightful Sean Young in a very small role; David Palffy as a not so nice guy, out to settle the score with Allen; Daryl Shuttleworth, as a cop who works with Allen eventually in finding the answers to a murder; Nelson Wong in a small role as a hotel clerk who eventually becomes part of the Starchey team in latter films; Rob deLeeuw in a small role as a puppeteer with a dark past and finally the one and only porn star, Matthew Rush, playing, guess what? A porn star. Go figure. He was funny to watch him play himself with tongue in cheek. Yes, he gets frontal views. Isn't that his business?Get this movie. You'll get hooked. I intend to make a collection of all the Donald Starchey series.

Terrell-4 Which would be worse if you're a gay detective based in Albany, New York...slugged in the kisser by an irate blonde who doesn't care for the photos you took of her husband or being called "Nancy-boy Drew" by the corrupt and catty manager of a hotel who secretly films the doings of some of the guests? Donald Strachey (Chad Allen) doesn't much care for either, but this is nothing compared to what he is about to get involved in. Fortunately, Strachey is a happily married man, or as close to it as a gay man can be. His partner, Timmy Callaghan (Sebastian Spence), is a smart, affectionate political assistant to an elected New York state assemblywoman. Strachey's latest case brings him a client that both he and Timmy are repulsed by. John Rutka (Jack Wetherall), an aging, self-righteous gay demagogue, publishes a cable expose program called The Rutka Report. In it he outs closet gays, especially well-known married public homophobes who promote family values and sponsor anti-gay legislation while secretly making nighttime visits to highway rest stops and wearing their leathers at, ah, small, intimate parties. After someone breaks into his home and shoots him in the leg, Rutka goes to Strachey for protection. Strachey turns him down. Outing people, Strachey and Timmy agree, is one of the lowest forms of human activity. But the need for Strachey to earn an income changes their minds. Even though Strachey has to hold his nose, he takes on the job. It's not long before a charred corpse turns up and is identified through dental records and that gunshot wound by the cops as Rutka. Strachey took the man's money; now he's determined to find the man's murderer. There are three prime candidates, one of whom Rutka was going to pick as the cover-boy for his next broadcast. From Rutka's files, Strachey identifies Ronnie Linklater, the host and star of a hugely popular children's television show who enjoys using his hand-puppets in unusual ways; Bruno Slinger, a powerful, anti-gay Congressman who thinks B&D without a little pain for his partner is for sissies; and a person Rutka identified only as "the ultimate hypocrite." From there, Strachey doggedly goes through piles of Rutka's documents, financial records and computer files. Along the way he visits sleazy motels, a Catholic church, a hospital and a funeral; he encounters Rutka's body- building partner, Rutka's foul-mouthed sister, an exercising granny who puts moves on him, and various tough guys who push him around and pistol whip him. He leaves one of them limping, after Timmy gets beaten up, by using a power nailer to plow a nail into the guy's foot. Strachey also visits a porn call-in site where the owner, Dik Steele, for a fee will talk to heavy breathing call-in chumps. Even Strachey looks put off a bit at the operators posing as Steele...balding, chubby males and grannies with deep voices, all pretending to be Dik Steele in the throes of ultimate passion. Kind of like internet sites. The conclusion carries a powerful and unexpected twist which some may like and some may not. Third Man Out is the first of what may be a series of Canadian cable movies featuring Chad Allen as Donald Strachey. The second, Shock to the System, was broadcast in 2006. It seemed to me that with Third Man Out, director and writer Ron Oliver was still in the process of finding the right balance between message and mystery. Oliver and Allen deal with a lot of issues here, some head on, some in passing, everything from hypocrisy, AIDs and the costs of AIDs medicine, the ethics of outing, gay relationships and on and on. For me, all these messages began getting in the way of the mystery, which I thought was well-constructed with clever false leads, good characters and a disturbing conclusion. With Shock to the System, I think Oliver found the formula that works...make sure you put the mystery first and keep the messages low-key. For readers, the Donald Strachey mysteries by Richard Stevenson, all eight of them, are worth buying. The plots are strong and Strachey makes for a believable, sometimes cocky private eye. They are solid mysteries that happen to feature a gay private detective; they're not simply gay mysteries.

L.J. McFarland-Groves I don't often post on this site, perhaps I will more often, but felt compelled to add my two cents since my reaction to the film was different from the reviews I've been reading. I enjoyed this gay Who-done-it and hope that there'll be more from the same writer. Yes, the characters at time seem overly sweet, but that's against the sarcasm and one-upmanship we come to accept as normal in gay society. Here we have a devoted couple, struggling along the best they can. One is in a political background, supporting his other half who does what he can in a tedious private detective position. Presented with a case he's torn between doing the right thing, either refusing to work for a gay man who he finds fanatical and who tends to ruin lives - or put himself and his lover in danger by pursuing "the bad guys"Dashiell Hammett has been dead for years, there'll be no more Nick Charles stories, but Richard Stevenson's Donald Strachey is a refreshing twist especially considering Strachey and his partner aren't some tedious twinky 20-somethings, and the film was done as a homage to Film Noir and has some nice romantic touches. I have purchased this DVD,recommend it and look forward to sequels.

cdshow I didn't know that the time has come for a gay take on a detective story that has been a traditional straight domain. And it turned out good. Its about a self-styled investigative reporter (Wetherall from QAF) who outs high profile, closeted but practicing gays who use their positions to stifle gay rights. Naturally Wetherall attracted powerful enemies. When his life is on the line, Allen reluctantly took on his case despite the fact that he abhors Wetherall. My likes: the normalcy of the gay setting; the way the plot twists are paced so that you never expect the final turn (this being a book adaptation); Allen performing like a seasoned PI who has been there and done that but with a hint of a checkered past that hopefully will surface in the next installment (there are plans for a series). And the sexy song in the middle of the movie when Allen took his partner for a slow dance. Cant wait for the next one.