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THE
BROKEN HEARTS CLUB
6/10
US
2000
director
/ script : Greg Berlanti
cinematography : Thomas Bango
editing : Todd Busch
stars : Timothy Olyphant, John Mahoney, Dean Cain, Matt McGrath
94 minutes
If
you’re in the market for a gay version of Swingers, Broken Hearts
might just fit the bill. Otherwise, there’s no special reason to seek
out this amiable but forgettable trifle from writer-director Berlanti.
The Club is an LA softball team who fall in and out of each other’s arms
and affections, until a predictable tragedy brings them tearfully together
for a group-hug finale. This is especially disappointing, given the fact
that a character has a speech criticising the cliches of ‘gay movies’
– which, up to this point, Broken Hearts has refreshingly managed
to sidestep. Afterwards, it’s a case of ticking them all off one by one.
A
charitable view would be to suggest Scream-type self-referential
irony, but everything is played so ‘straight’ (so to speak) that it’s
unlikely Berlanti had any kind of Wes Craven irony in mind. There’s a
blandness in his direction that never comes close to the agreeable rough-edged
looseness Doug Liman brought to this corner of Hollywood in Swingers.
The script is a smart enough, striking the right balance between character
stuff and barbed quippery, and the photogenic cast do their best with
it, though Olyphant (Todd Gaines from Liman’s Go) is the wrong
choice for the restrained main character. It’s otherwise a strong, nicely
varied ensemble, with Justin Theroux, deftly underplaying an underwritten
stoner role, the pick of the photogenic bunch.
1st
April, 2001
by Neil
Young
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