Remembering Colin Farrell’s homoerotic war movie ‘Tigerland’ on director Joel Schumacher’s birthday

Today—August 29, 2023—marks what would have been prolific gay filmmaker Joel Schumacher’s 84th birthday.

Over his nearly 50-year career, the eclectic director delivered his fair share of blockbusters and bombs, but was undeniably one of the most commercially successful out Hollywood hitmakers of his time. He was also not shy about his personal life—describing himself as “extremely promiscuous”—and once famously said he’d had sex with “10 or 20” thousand men.

Despite that, very few of his films addressed queerness in any overt way. Oh sure, ’87’s The Lost Boys was so homoerotic it’s now officially part of the queer horror cannon. And many of his films like The Phantom of The Opera and (especially) Batman & Robin are considered camp classics. But the drag-and-crime comedy Flawless was his only film to prominently feature LGBTQ+ characters.

However, there’s another Schumacher flick that’s as steeped in homoeroticism as The Lost Boys, even though it doesn’t take up the same space in the cultural conversation. And it just so happens to be one of his best-reviewed movies: 2000’s Tigerland.

Often described as a Vietnam War movie, the film never actually leaves North America, largely taking place at a U.S. Army training camp created as a replica of the Asian country and dubbed “Tigerland.”

In his first lead role, Irish heartthrob Colin Farrell plays anti-war draftee Roland Bozz who has a knack for finding loopholes to get his fellow soldiers out of the army. Feelings about the war aside, he quickly climbs the ranks and eventually establishes a tight bond with volunteer recruit Jim Paxton (Legally Blonde‘s Matthew Davis).

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While the thrust of the movie is the rigorous training at Tigerland and the antagonistic threat of psychotic fellow recruit Wilson (Mission: Impossible‘s Shea Whigham), the real draw—at least for our purposes—is the intense and intimate connection between Bozz and Paxton.

The latter may have volunteered himself for the Vietnam War, but he’s an aspiring writer shown to be a bit more sensitive and thoughtful—perhaps unintentionally coded as gay. But it doesn’t take a queer eye to see the way Paxton looks at Bozz with something more than admiration. At the very least, it’s fair to call their relationship a bromance.

On top of that, Tigerland features plenty scenes of shirtless, sweaty men which are sure to get the blood-pumping.

A capsule review from EW at the time of release commented that Schumacher “shoots the actors as if they were Abercrombie & Fitch models”—with a special shout-out to “hunky newcomer” Farrell, just emerging as a viable star and object of list at this point in his career—ultimately lauding Tigerland for being “as homoerotic as it is harrowing.”

So, is it an authentic portrayal of platoon life on a training camp at the time, or is it a filmmaker’s gay gaze eroticizing reality? And are we meant to read something deeper into Bozz and Paxton’s bond, or is our imagination running just a little too wild?

You can be the judge of that yourself, as Tigerland‘s readily available to stream on multiple platforms right now, making it the perfect watch if you’re looking to celebrate the cinematic legacy of the late, great Joel Schumacher on his birthday.

Tigerland is now streaming via Starz and the Starz plug-ins on AppleTV+, Prime Video, and The Roku Channel. Its also available for digital rental through Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube TV.

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