YMMV / Ben and Arthur

• Anvilicious: Religion and the law shouldn't get in the way of same-sex marriage.
• Designated Hero:
  • Arthur. You can sorta sympathize with him in spite of his bitchy, narcissistic behavior... at least until he torches a priest alive, though in Arthur's defense, the priest was a homophobic asshole who was trying to kill Arthur himself. Not to mention that, during the climax, we're supposed to be angry at Victor for shooting Arthur while the latter tries to rape him.
  • Ben to a lesser extent; he comes across as a fairly decent guy overall, but his admission of having affairs with other men behind his then-wife's back really doesn't help. The story does try to justify it somewhat by leaving subtle hints that Ben and Tammy's relationship was toxic, made evident by Tammy's nutjob behavior, but still.
• Don't Shoot the Message: Don't expect any pro-LGBT organizations to recommend this film on account of its poor quality and sloppy handling of its messages.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Most comparisons between this film and The Room (2003) (which was written and apparently shot before this film, but released afterwards) tend to refer to their mutual incompetence and anviliciousness, but the two films have a surprising amount in common:
    • Both films take place in one of the two largest cities of California (Los Angeles in this film, San Francisco in The Room), with the primary setting in each film being the apartment of its male lead.
    • Both films have terrible leading actor/writer/directors, who are fond of showing off their bodies much more so than most audience members are fond of seeing them. Unlike Tommy Wiseau, Sam Mraovich is credited in nearly every aspect of production, including editing, cinematography, and even the musical score.
    • Both films depict everyone bar the leading guy and one other male character (Ben in this film, and Peter in The Room) as being evil bastards.
    • A wedding is an important plot point in both films; in The Room, the wedding never actually happens, while in this film, the wedding does technically happen, but isn't recognized by the state of California.
    • Each film features a main character obtaining a pistol during a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, and the pistol in question is used to take someone's life at the end of the film.
    • Both films have a Downer Ending, with the saintly protagonist meeting his untimely demise at the hands of a gun.
  • The film unambiguously presents organized religion as the absolute enemy of LGBT rights; after making the movie, Sam Mraovich converted to the Church of Latter-day Saints.
  • The idea that holy water can be made with a simple recipe was used here, long before Dan Vs. was created.
  • 2018 saw the publication of a critically acclaimed YA novel called What If It's Us, about a teenage gay couple. Their names? Ben and Arthur.
• Moral Event Horizon: Victor and Arthur both have one, namely their killings of the lawyer and the priest respectively.
• Narm: Sam Mraovich clearly wanted this to be a dramatic and tragic romance. To say this movie falls short of that would be a gentle understatement.
• Nightmare Retardant: Victor was clearly intended to be an unsettling example of how bad Christian fundamentalists can get with their extremism. However, his incompetence throughout the film, along with his actor's laughably bad performance, make it hard to take the character seriously, and his behavior is more laugh-inducing than menacing.
• The Scrappy: Arthur's obnoxious, whiny and selfish personality has not won him any fans to say the least.
• So Bad, It's Good: This movie has gained a fandom among bad movie connoisseurs for its laughably bad acting, shoddy production values, badly written plot and characters, corny music, and unintentional comedy, to the point of being hailed as "the LGBT version of The Room (2003)".
• Special Effect Failure: The film has almost zero need for effects to begin with, but the gunshots are consistently done with, well, nothing. There's zero muzzle flash, recoil, or slide movement (with one instance of smoke, appearing after a cutaway and obviously some kind of burning object stuffed in the barrel of the gun), extremely poor sound effects that fail to remain consistent with the same gun, and either no wounds at all or bullet wounds that only appear after a cut to a different angle. This creates a rather amusing cut where Victor has no visible mark when shot in the head and stumbling back into the blinds, but after a cutaway for two seconds his face is suddenly drenched in blood. It seems like guns in the Ben & Arthur universe run on magic, and pulling the trigger simply causes people to fall over dead. Also, Victor's gun is very obviously a painted water pistol, with even the filler cap visible on the rear of the frame. Even more strangely, Victor has a very real-looking Beretta which he draws in his apartment near the end of the film, but later both Arthur and himself are back to water pistols.
• Squick: Arthur's bathtub baptism, mostly because Victor thinks they should be performed with the recipient "naked in Jesus' eyes."
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Laughable execution aside, this is a surprisingly bleak film. All the characters are either whiny, psychotic, violent, or just plain unbearable. You'd rather see them all die than live by the end of the movie.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Ben's ex-wife, Tammy, to an extent. The audience is clearly supposed to see her as a Jerkass with psychological problems, and when Ben divorces her, we're supposed to root for him. However, Tammy comes off as more sympathetic than intended, especially since she has every right to be hurt and angry at Ben, since he's been cheating on her with Arthur for 3 years. It also doesn't help that the story doesn't bother to explain what Ben and Tammy's relationship was like before splitting up.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • It's hard to know whether we're supposed to sympathize with Ben or Arthur over the aforementioned punching incident, but neither of them comes out of it looking good. While Ben was clearly at fault for resorting to violence and then blaming it on Arthur, Arthur himself had reacted to Ben's somewhat justified rebuke for failing to lock up their bike (which Ben nonetheless apologized for straight away) with a completely unfair accusation that Ben is ashamed of his sexual orientation and wouldn't give two shits if Arthur died. The end result is that Ben appears sorely in need of anger management classes, while Arthur comes across as an emotionally immature Drama Queen.
  • Arthur, in general, is a character who is very hard to sympathize with, let alone root for. It's obvious that the story wants the audience to feel sympathy for him because he lives in a country where being gay was a source of mockery at the time, that and he has to put up with his psychotic religious brother, Victor, who is both trying to get in-between Ben and Arthur's relationship, as well as trying to kill them both. Unfortunately, Arthur behaves in an incredibly obnoxious and insufferable manner throughout the movie, and even does some questionable things himself, such as burning a priest alive and trying to rape Victor near the end. He's just not likable in the slightest.

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