EATING OUT, like several films before it (Trick, Mambo Italiano, Get your stuff, and the Spanish movie Km.0) tries to be a light-and-witty-but-poignant-at-times gay comedy of errors and switched identities, generously sprinkled with sequences whose main purpose is to showcase its young cast's semi-naked bodies in erotic situations.<br /><br />It is hard to tell that the movie fails, since it simply never aims very high, but even within its own low-budget gay comedy genre, it's one of the more lackluster efforts. The main premise is simple: after a hunkish straight guy (who shares an apartment with a gay roommate) is suddenly dumped by his kinky and sexually insatiable girlfriend, he turns his interest toward another girl who happens to share an apartment with a gay (male) roommate. To make things "complicated," the straight boy's gay roommate is lusting after the girl's gay roommate. The rest is quite predictable, and follows the pattern of this genre without detours (intro - complications and mistaken identities - climax scene - happy ending). Neither the dialog, nor the acting are substantially better or worse than in the other similar movies, so those who like them, will probably enjoy Eating out. Admittedly, the film's premise, although clichéd, has its comedic possibilities, but the script doesn't really take full advantage of this inherent potential. For an extremely low budget production, the set, the sound, the editing, etc. are all technically competent, if somewhat uninspired. With a better-written, wittier, smarter, and more polished script, EATING... could have been much more fun, without necessarily costing more money. Sadly, I can't resist pointing out that, with the mainstream cinema and media still completely allergic to even most innocently presented displays of same-sex affection, not to mention actual sex, films like this still do have a function to fulfill, even when they fail to live up to its audience's expectations.