Pulpmovies Reviews

When German performance artist, Fredrik Vilhelm (Steve Barr) tripped while playing frisbee he did so in such an outrageously flamboyant way that a new art form was born. Tossers is the story of the Fourth Annual Gay Frisbee Dancing contest, the organisers and the contestants.

As the contest draws near, the film focuses largely on two pairs of contestants. Willow (Elisa Dyann) and Moonbeam (Candice Martin) Goldberg are the returning champions and practicing VAICANS (and I don’t want to spoil any of the many jokes in the film, so I won’t explain the acronym). Facing them will be the frisbee dance team sensation of Simon (Danny Grossman) and Sherman (Rob Ullett), as long as Sherman manages to deal with his full moon problem.

Tossers is a very funny mockumentary, and one that really demonstrates the effectiveness of this type of comedy. Writer/director Danny Grossman has managed to pack a huge amount of both character and humour into the film, all of which is surprisingly warm-hearted.

There are plenty of barbs aimed at overly-specific identity politics, group therapies for vanishingly rare conditions and the sense that fame is just around the corner. But you also get a real feel for the infectious enthusiasm that the characters bring to their chosen form of self-expression.

It helps, of course, that the cast do put in consistently strong performances which manage to acknowledge the sheer camp absurdity of the film’s premise without trying to outdo it for silliness. The result is a set of characters that are both believable and sympathetic and – in the case of Simon and Sherman – able to engender some real pathos.

Tossers is a funny and good-natured film filled with a believable and largely likeable cast of characters who do a great job of keeping you genuinely interested in how the events around them develop. The film is very well written and shot through with both a gentle sense of humour and more jokes per minute than many comedies manage in their entire duration, all of which comes together in a climax that is both funny and moving.

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