L.I.E.: Encyclopedia II - L.I.E. - Plot summary

L.I.E. - Plot summary

Howie Blitzer (Dano), still reeling from the death of his mother in a car accident on the titular highway, finds his only solace in the company of his best friend Gary (Billy Kay), a juvenile delinquent and amateur prostitute who he has a kind of crush on. One night, they break into the house of "Big John" Harrigan (Cox), a closeted pederast and Gary's main "customer". They steal a valuable WWII vintage pistol John kept from his military service.

John is angered by the loss of his heirloom and retaliates by threatening to hurt Gary unless Howie returns the gun or comes to work for him. At first, Harrigan tries to molest Howie by showing him pornography, but Howie, startled and confused, rejects his advances. The two begin a tenuous, non-sexual friendship in which Harrigan becomes a kind of father figure to the boy. Harrigan's compulsions, however, combined with Howie's burgeoning homosexuality, the imprisonment of Howie's distant father (Bruce Altman), and the fact that Gary has run away, create an uneasy atmosphere in which sexual interaction is a definite possibility.

Near the end, vulnerable because he believes his father has abandoned him, Howie stays the night at John's house expecting John to sleep with him. But when John informs Howie his father didn't abandon him, but is instead in jail, Howie breaks down and cries in relief. In his compassion for Howie, John fixes him a bed and leaves him to sleep by himself, much to Howie's dismay. The next morning, after taking Howie to see his father in jail, John is shot and killed by a former (adult) lover who resents the attention John gives to Howie. At the end, everyone Howie has ever loved has left him (his mother and John are dead, Gary has run away, and his father is in prison), and in the final scene he is contemplating the expressway, vowing he won't let it get him too.

Despite negligible box office earnings, the film received much critical acclaim, especially for Cox's performance.

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