“Bros”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, amuses me in more than one way. Here is a raunchy but ultimately sweet R-rated romantic comedy unabashedly wielding lots of gay stuffs and a bit of other sexual minority elements on the screen, and a number of frank and humorous moments in the film, which are often accompanied with considerable nudity and carnality, compensate for its apparent genre conventions and clichés.

At the beginning, we are introduced to Bobby Lieber (Billy Eichner), a proud and confident gay podcaster living in New York City. The opening scene shows him doing another episode of his popular podcast series, and we can see how passionate he is about not only being gay but also the human history of LGBTQ+ people. As a matter of fact, he also works in a LGBTQ+ human history museum, and the movie goes for some broad laughs as he argues and discusses a lot with his several different colleagues, who clearly represent various groups of LGBTQ+ people.

While he is 40 now, Bobby is not particularly interested in having any kind of serious relationship. After all, as your average successful cis-gender male professional in New York City, he has almost all at present, and, if he needs sex, all he has to do is checking an online dating application for gay people, which I have incidentally used during last 7 years since I came out of the closet in late 2016. His body is not exactly a type to draw many users within a few minutes, but his body surely looks better than my chubby body, and, above all, there are a lot more chances for hookups in New York City than a local South Korean city I have lived for 6 years (No, it is not Seoul).

On one day, Bobby happens to attend a big and loud nightclub party which celebrates the release of some another online dating application for gay people, and that is how he comes across a handsome lawyer dude named Aaron (Luke Macfarlane). While this guy does not look like someone he can hang around with, Bobby cannot help but attracted more and more to him, even though he gets separated from him more than once. In the end, he finds himself joining a little private moment along Aaron and two other guys with whom Aaron is supposed to have a sex. As observing how Bobby feels awkward and uncomfortable during this scene, I came to muse a bit on my sole threesome attempt with two other dudes. You may have some fun, but you may eventually find it cumbersome and boring especially if you are not really into it, and, to be frank with you, even one sex partner is quite a challenging task for my feeble brain and clumsy body.

At that point, Aaron seems to be just another guy for sex to Bobby, but, what do you know, they subsequently correspond more with each other, and they feel more of the mutual attraction between them despite their many differences. While Bobby is more forthright about his thoughts and feelings, Aaron is more reserved in comparison, and he is still not so comfortable about his homosexuality even though his family already knows about that.

Nevertheless, they become more attracted to each other as spending more time together, and that makes Bobby consider more about having his first serious romantic relationship, though he and Aaron do not know what to do with their developing relationship. Can they actually be devoted a lot to each other? And can they handle well a number of problems from their considerable personality differences?

Now this is a very familiar setup borrowed from countless romantic heterosexual romantic comedy films out there, and the screenplay by Bill Eichner and his co-writer/director Nicholas Stoller, who has been known for several notable comedy films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008) and “Neighbors” (2014), is certainly well aware of its conventions and clichés from the beginning. While it surely follows the conventional story formula as expected during its last act, the movie also tries hard to distinguish itself above those conventions and clichés, and it does not pull any punch in case of sex just like many of Judd Apatow’s R-rated comedy films (Apatow also participated in its production, by the way).

It helps that the movie is supported well by the good comic chemistry between its two main cast members. Eichner, a wonderful comedian who has mostly been known for appearing in a number of different TV drama and comedy series, effortlessly embodies his character’s neurotic insecurity behind the supposedly forthright appearance, and that is complemented well by Luke Macfarlane’s plain but stable presence. In case of many other notable cast members in the film, most of whom openly belong to the LGBTQ+ community, they are mostly under-utilized due to their under-developed supporting roles, but a few of them including Jim Rash, Bowen Yang, and Harvey Fierstein has a little juicy fun during their brief appearance.

In conclusion, “Bros” is a conventional but fairly enjoyable queer romantic comedy, though I wish it could go further for more laughs and insights. In my inconsequential opinion, another recent gay comedy film “Fire Island” has more life and personality, but “Bros” has enough fun stuffs to enjoy nonetheless, so I recommend you to check it out someday.