Charlie (Dan Futterman) is an ordinary man haunted by the absence of his boyfriend, Chris (Matt Keeslar). Unable to sleep, he roams the streets of NYC looking in various bars for him. During the course of his journeys, Charlie keeps running into a number of different urban legends: the woman who cooks her dog in the microwave, the man who wakes up to find he is missing a kidney, a rat in a hot dog bun, a baby left on a car top, a tourist's toothbrush, needles in public-phone change slots--all of which makes NYC look surreal and scary. There are many dream-like hallucinatory flashbacks. He encounters Dean (Samuel Ball), a tough young man Charlie has met somewhere before, and who may hold the answers to Charlie's questions. Dean is racist, sexist and homophobic. Charlie pretends to be straight, buys Dean drinks and smokes a joint with him. Then Dean takes Charlie to a gay cruising area looking for victims, but Charlie is able to warn away the intended target. Dean is now almost incapacitated by alcohol and drugs and Charlie gets him into Dean's car and drives him to a secluded marshy area. With flashbacks we learn that several months earlier Dean and two of his buddies had attacked Charlie and raped and murdered Chris. Charlie's purpose is finally revealed: he wants revenge. He had pulled a knife on Dean and forced him to kneel and fellate the knife blade. Suddenly, Dean collapsed with an epileptic seizure. Charlie slit his throat. Chris challenges Charlie, not believing that he killed Dean. Charlie admits that he wanted to but couldn't. Instead, he drove off in Dean's car, abandoning him in the marsh. Charlie stands up from where he's been kneeling, at a makeshift memorial near where Chris was killed. He walks home and has one more flashback. He sees himself on the street, cradling a dying Chris. He kisses him goodbye and passes by him. When he turns back, he is gone. Charlie makes it home and finally is able to sleep.
This film mixes comedy, drama, film noir, and gay cinema in new and interesting ways. A directorial debut from Jon Shear (Jon Matthews), "Urbania" moves from the present time to flashbacks and flashforwards, never losing its viewers for a second. It's based on the stage play "Urban Folk Tales" by Daniel Reitz, who wrote the screenplay with John Mathews. Marc Anthony Thompson composed the original music, and Jon Matthews directed.
