Here’s a fun flick by Paul Schrader that goes hard: Auto-Focus, based on TV star Bob Crane (Hogan’s Heroes) in the 1960s, bludgeoned to death by a tripod in the 1970s. Crane was a ham, and Greg Kinnear plays him with hedonistic hollowness and oink. He’s likely to say: “That’s me—a likable guy!” while getting groped to death. “Fortunate man, yes, I am!” One day on his way to work, long before his infamous murder, Crane meets John, Satan in 1950s leisurewear, played by Willem Dafoe. These horndogs in solidarity light out on a road paved with smut. After an orgy, John turns to Bob with eyelids fluttering. “Where you been all my life?”
Before long, Bob has plowed through two marriages, and with his career on the decline, the degenerate duo resort to masturbating perfunctorily down in Bob’s basement together to group-sex videos they’ve made using video tape recorders supplied by John, an electronics salesman. It’s grim, but funny. John relishes Bob’s C-list celebrity; Bob likes John’s connection to Sony, and his sleaze factor. But sometimes he goes too far. “Hey, what’s that on my ass!” Bob asks, down in the basement once again, trying to discern something fuzzy on the playback. “That’s my hand,” John admits. “Why are your fingers so near my ass, John?” “It was an orgy, Bob… a group grope.” Later, a rekindling when Bob shows John something big: his penile enhancement surgery. Follow this with a few more homoerotic blowouts, and then murder. The movie’s last words are delivered by Bob’s corpse remembering his pal John, the prime suspect in a case that remains unsolved. “He was a cool guy in his way. Men gotta have fun.” O! louche daddy-O’s. Tres naifs!