Bleed Like Me

After a fatally botched robbery, would-be indie filmmakers and long-standing gay frenemies Jesse and Butch hole up at a house in the Southern California desert to figure out their next move. With nowhere to go and no one to trust but each other, old resentments and unspoken feelings rise to the surface as the heat closes in. Writer-director Chris Phillips crafts a lean, tense two-hander that plays like a chamber thriller: part crime story, part character study, and part reckoning between two men who have spent years hiding what they mean to each other. Elijah Olachea and Billy Walker deliver raw, committed performances in a film about loyalty, ambition, guilt, and the thin line between friendship and something more.