Touches You

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A lot of people reviewing this movie (both gay and straight) seem to feel either it's a bad movie or just not a very good one. I disagree. I loved this movie when I first watched it around 2001 and I still love it. True, it has a flaws (I'll get to them in a minute) but what movie doesn't? Let me start by saying my biggest gripe with this movie had nothing to do with the direction, screenplay or acting (all of which I liked) but with the soundtrack. To hear Dennis and Kevin talk about The Carpenters' music and what it means to them yet to hear the songs and it's not Karen's angelic voice or Richard playing the piano - well, what a bummer. But that is truly my only major complaint. I feel the lesbian angle could have been left out and Patrick's character might have met a nice guy who fell in love with him would have made a better story. The story has characters that are likable and real. Anyone who feels gay men don't sit around and talk about guys all the time is like saying straight men don't sit around and talk about sports all of the time. Or maybe sports and women. I liked that the characters were all so different, yet seemed to really about each other as friends, even with their troubles and disagreements. I don't think this is the type of movie straight people or lesbians will enjoy, but I would recommend it to anyone who plays on the team that this movie portrays.

I liked Broken Hearts Club from the first preview session in a local (Brisbane) boutique cinema. I've thoroughly enjoyed it several times since on DVD - including last night. The only flaw that really gets to me is in the opening scene where the gay friends are playing at acting straight and Benji is declared the loser for misusing the term "girlfriend". Dennis adds one too many negatives when explaining why Benji has lost, saying "There isn't a straight man in America who doesn't call anyone but their girlfriend 'girlfriend'." The intention was to state that straight men never call each other "girlfriend", so he should instead have said "There isn't a straight man in America who calls anyone but their girlfriend 'girlfriend'." It's a minor point to some, perhaps, but double negatives (especially when misused) give me a severe headache.Broken Hearts Club still gets five stars, because the other flaws are truly trifling and there are some excellent memorable lines delivered by all of the characters.Dean Cain (one of the most attractive, and contentedly straight, men in the world) utterly convinces in his role as gay bimbo Cole and seems to be having the time of his life.I have a similar group of long term friends, in whom our only common denominator is that we're gay - which is why we met in the first place. Just as with the guys in this film, its the genuine ongoing mutual support of our friends which makes us happy to be gay. Our group of friends in suburban Brisbane is in many respects radically different from the fictional group in West Hollywood - but on the "heart and soul" level we're very similar. I'm sure that experience is shared and celebrated by viewers world-wide.

*The Broken SPOILERS Club* It's the story of five gay friends, Dennis (Timothy Olyphant), the soft-spoken photographer and main character, Benji (a blond Zach Braff) a gym bunny, Patrick (Ben Weber), constantly grouchy, Cole (Dean Cain), the one with the Matinèe Idol good looks, and Howie (Matt McGrath), a psychiatry student who seems to have problems relating to people, as his relationship with Marshall (Justin Theroux) attests.The friends also play baseball in the 'Broken Hearts', the absolute worst baseball team in the world, under the watchful eye of Jack (John Mahoney) and his lover, the Purple Guy (Robert Arce). Coincidentally, the 'Broken Hearts' is also the restaurant where the guys hang out the most and where some of them work.One day, young 'newbie' Kevin (Andrew Keegan) enters the picture and big queen Taylor (Billy Porter) is dumped for 'a punctuation mark' by his boyfriend.That is just the beginning of a season of change for each and everyone of the Broken Hearts Club's card-carrying members, including African-style living rooms, sad deaths, rushes to the hospital, lesbian sister and lover asking for brother's sperm to make a baby, 'therapy sessions', sex with supposedly straight movie stars and more...It was finally refreshing to see a gay movie where they say 'Ok, they're here, they're gay, movin'on'... and touch on relationship with a realism Howie would be proud of.Well, seeing who the director and writer is I shouldn't be surprised, but Everwood's Greg Berlanti managed to do exactly that.He also is aided by a very good cast and crew, who make 'The Broken Hearts Club' a heartwarming flick that can speak to any man, whether gay or straight.The Broken Hearts Club: 9/10.

There is not much point in wasting more than one line on this film; it couldn't have been worse even if they tried. However, IMDb insists that I go on for at least ten lines. Let's see...every single idea in this film has been done before... and BETTER! Not only that, but they didn't even have the decency to give us one even mildly titillating sex scene. That's probably because no-one in the film was committed enough to the film to even dare to attempt one. Besides the fact that it was not funny (I think I smiled once during the entire film)there was no-one in the film that you could seriously care about. Even the worst of TV situation comedies comes across as more witty than this... I think they should have added a laugh track. At least we would have known what was supposed to be a joke. Have I done my ten lines yet? Please, let me out of here! I want to forget this film as quickly as possible.