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Lukas in Love, Parts 1 and 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Produced and directed by George Duroy. Videography by Marty Stevens, Mark Russos, and Mel Roberts, Jr. Edited by Starring Lukas Ridgeston, Tommy Hansen, Matt Phillipe, Sebastian Bonnet, Yves Carradine, Sascha Chaykin, Ethan Clarke, Josh Elliot, Rick Fontana, Tim Hamilton, Brandon Manilow, Danny Saradon, Marc Vidal, Mark Aubrey, Jason Paradis, and Liam Phoenix.
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Lukas Ridgeston has been the reigning star at Bel Ami Entertainment for nearly a decade. Born in 1974 in Bratislava, he was 21 when director George Duroy cast him in Tender Strangers. Now, more than 20 features later, Ridgeston plans to withdraw from modeling and work behind the scenes as a photographer, videographer, and director. Lukas in Love may mark his last appearance on camera in a sexual role.

If so, it's a lavish send-off, impeccably shot, filled with vitality, presented in two parts with a total running time of 260 minutes. There's a rudimentary story. In Part 1, just before leaving for a Bel Ami location shoot in South Africa, Ridgeston walks in on boyfriend Tim Hamilton fucking someone else. Hurt, he storms out, flies off to his assignment, and has lots of consoling sex with his colleagues at the Glen Boutique Hotel, the Cape Town gay resort that hosts the George Duroy repertory company. At the end of Part 2, he connects with Matt Phillipe as they pose together for stills, and new relationship begins.

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At 31, Ridgeston is more attractive than he was in his post-adolescent phase when Lukas's Story and its sequels made him internationally famous, and more alive to the camera than Tom Cruise, whom he slightly resembles. His 15 co-stars, most of whom assemble for Part 2's orgy in a skylit Turkish bath, constitute a porn-model aristocracy. You may wish these young, charismatic, predominantly Czech and Slovak men used names reflecting their origins, though you can see why alphabet scrimmages like Juraj Vrzgula, Ridgeston's birth name, might have limited commercial prospects in the US. Pseudonyms aside, the sheer radiance of this cast is astonishing.

The two parts of Lukas in Love are available separately or in a "Premium Collector's Edition" obtainable only by mail. The latter includes both discs, a bonus disc offering photo-session footage, and a illustrated booklet with an essay by Ridgeston and notes by Duroy. It's the porn equivalent of a five-pound box of chocolates.