Just turned 18 young Cliff goes downtown and meets hustler Butch and falls for him. Butch is pretty f**ked up. As an addict his spiral downwards spins off pretty quick, I must add to my comfort and thankfully as the last little snatch of plausibility this film had to offer. Being drawn from stories by Bruce LaBruce one knew what to expect. Thank God his hip hypocrisy when it comes to his own direction was passed to other hands with visible improvement. Though this is not enough.Brendan Fehr's portrait of Butch is good acting, with one misfire I think. A bit too much accent on the likable-because-good-underneath guy. This makes the film implausible, for it steals the comic moments, and gives hints, although not making something work out, either as morality lesson, or letting it be just plainly cynical. Andre Noble's twit undercurrent was spot on, though I am not so sure about his somewhat raging blandness at the end. But this is more the script's blandness.I liked the cinematography, as if it was coming from an early nineties New Queer Cinema feature. But as another reviewer mentions, looking so terrible, although obviously intentional, was unwise, too.Little sis' was the least narcissistic of all people in the film. This does not come off as poignant, but as detrimentally cynical.As most things in the film, betting on weirdness for its own sake. (The scene in the limo, with all the boys getting naked, almost had something of "Shortbus"'s sheen.) There was one properly chilling moment: the two guys at the pool being almost comically terifying.The detail of the fake black nail on Butch's right hand, ah! This is what Bruce LaBruce's punk grit comes down to: have a black nail just to get high.

Yeah, the spoilers are coming...Look, this movie actually had me buying it most of the way through. Butch came across as a sympathetic character and Cliff's naivety made it all the more painful when Butch turned on him. Still, that made sense - Butch doesn't understand a relationship based upon love and doesn't see why turning Cliff into another trick is that big of a deal. His self-destructive spiral afterwards was pretty damn well done, too.What KILLED it for me was after Butch died. Cliff's first boyfriend has just died and within hours of the funeral he aggressively hits on another man and gives him oral in a bathroom? Huh? Look, somebody may justify this by stating "Maybe you just don't get gay culture" or by pointing out that "Sugar" refers to all sorts of addictions and maybe Cliff's addiction is sex. But when you take your most sympathetic, deepest character (Butch) and kill him off and then have the next best character in the movie do something to so completely disrespect him, well, the movie loses points in my book.Even if they had just ended with Cliff in cafe making eye contact with the other guy, it would have been a better end than this. A movie can only be so nihilistic before it loses you, and "Sugar" lost me completely in the last five minutes.And did anybody notice he pretty much abandoned his sister downtown? Just saying.

I was blown away by this film.So many of the characters reminded me of people I grew up with during my middle / high school years.. the drugs and all.There is nothing "pretty" or "whitewashed" about this film, It presents the audience with an accurate look into the lives of gay street kids & their lives.The way they live, love, and die...This is the kind of film I was truly surprised that a major chain like Blockbuster would carry.Wheither you're gay bi or straight, drug user, or straight-edger, there is something everyone can learn from SUGAR.

I rented "Sugar" with some trepidation; all I needed was another low budget "seedy-side-of–life-coming -of –age-damn-he's-dead" story. I was surprised, no, I was elated to find otherwise. What makes this different from so many of this genre? Great acting, great writing, great directing. Wow, just like a real movie! This old story (young kid meets up with hustler and begins to sink to the bottom) has been told again and again and will be re-told again and again. There's something about archetypes here, some sort of shared mythology that just begs to be re-visited and re-explored. This movie is worth the visit. Brendan Fehr gives a masterful performance as the hustler and the late Andre Noble as the young explorer is wonderful. Some of the scenes are riveting, some endearing and one is unforgettable. I won't give more away, just rent this film and watch and learn