Bar Boys is a 2017 Philippine comedy-drama film directed by Kip Oebanda under TropicFrills Film Productions in cooperation with Wild Sound Studios.
It stars Carlo Aquino (as Erik Vicencio), Rocco Nacino (as Torran Garcia), Enzo Pineda (as Christian Carlson), and Kean Cipriano (as Joshua Zuñiga) as a tight-knit group of friends going through law school.
Oebanda has uploaded the full film, with English subtitles, on his YouTube channel.
Bar Boys contains examples of the following tropes:
- All Take and No Give: Christian becomes this to Rachel. When she calls him out, he says that he needs her to provide comfort, and she tells him he should've gotten an electric fan instead.
- Damned by Faint Praise: When Torran asks Alice how their sexual encounter was, we get this exchange:Alice: Average. Average to slightly above-average.Torran: ...Thanks?
- Incompatible Orientation: Erik identifies as straight, but propositions Victor to secure a better grade. Victor turns him down because it's unethical and sleazy, but admits that he is attracted to Erik and wouldn't say no if Erik asked him out again post-graduation. Though he's straight, Erik is flattered.
- Innocently Insensitive: Played for laughs. Torran's mother doesn't seem to realize how insensitive she's being when she celebrates Torran being her first and only child who's shaping up to be successful in life. His sister sarcastically says "Wow" because she and his other siblings are right there as she's essentially calling them losers, and she thinks her daughter's merely celebrating with her.
- Interclass Romance: The rich, Harvard-bound Christian's girlfriend Rachel is a working-class cosmetics seller. The fact that Christian is very clearly mestizo (mixed Filipino and, in his case, White) from his Anglo surname Carlson to his looks and Rachel is a brown-skinned Filipino woman with no visible/known foreign heritage adds another dimension to it.
- Most Gamers Are Male: Most of the MMORPG players shown are men, although there are a few women in the background.
- Photographic Memory: Torran claims that he remembers everything. His performance in law school proves that, at the very least, he really does have an excellent memory.
- Sex for Services: A desperate Erik propositions Victor in hopes of securing a better grade, even though Erik is straight.
- Straight Gay: Victor acts "straight" enough that most of his students don't assume he's gay, although the main group of friends catch on quickly. They do, however, wrongly believe that he has a crush on Erik. Subverted. Victor, disguised as their classmate, is actually just observing his students. Double Subverted when it turns out that Victor is attracted to Erik, but won't sleep with him because he's his student.
- Student/Teacher Romance: Defied by Victor. He admits that Erik is exactly his type, but it's unethical and against his personal principles to have sex with a student. That said, he tells Erik he'd go out with him if he asked again post-graduation.
- Unfortunate Names: Victor remarks that Torran Garcia is an ugly name.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Invoked. There's a disclaimer at the beginning about how everything shown in the film is purely fictitious and that law schools don't operate exactly as they're depicted... so please don't sue them.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: To some extent, all of the main four friends are this. Christian probably has the worst case, though. His mother died giving birth to him and his father won't hesitate to remind him every time he tries to do something that displeases him, so he feels like he can't argue with what his father wants, ever.
- Working-Class Hero: Erik is ultimately the star among the four friends. He's also the most disadvantaged one. Apart from being poor, he notes that he has a weak memory and isn't proficient in English (the language of instruction in Philippine law schools), unlike Christian.
