Act of Love

A grieving young man kills his brother with a shotgun on the request of his suffering sibling who has been paralyzed after a motorcycle accident and wants to be put out of his misery. He readily admits to his actions and stands trial, hoping that people will understand.

Act of Love is a TV movie which features early roles from Ron Howard and Mickey Rourke, the latter of whom plays the paralysed brother and so only has fairly limited screen-time. The main role is played by Howard, not surprising really given that at that time he was a pretty big TV star off the back of 'Happy Days' in particular. He's pretty good value in this one, although the screenplay doesn't really delve into the topic of assisted suicide in as much depth as it could. For example, we are given a very limited perspective from the point of view of the grieving mother, sister and wife. It's very much a story told from the angle of Howard and his conflicted defence lawyer. In fairness, it does look at both sides of the argument reasonably fairly and it does bring up some worthwhile points even if it's pretty predictable and limited in a lot of ways. Still, it is a fairly solid TV movie about the controversial topic of euthanasia and it does also have the added weight of having been seemingly based on a true story.

This is a gut wrenching story of a two brother that were extremely close, Leon & Joseph Cybulkowski. Joseph was riding a motorcycle, had an accident that left him a quadriplegic. Joseph did not want to live that way - he felt he was only a "head", that's all he was able to use - so he made his brother Leon promise to kill him if the operation still left him a quadriplegic. Leon did shoot his brother - kill him as promised. A lawyer took Leon's case because the courts want him charged with 1st degree murder, the lawyer does not want to use the euthanasia (mercy killing) defense, he wants to use the "not right in the head" defense. Now it's Leon himself and his lawyer to convince the court to let Leon go.

Watching this film I do not see Opie Taylor nor do I see Richie Cunningham - I see Ron Howard the actor. And Ron Howard is damned good in this film. The rest of the cast is also super. Everyone is very convincing.

I really enjoyed this film. I know that if I ended up in a situation like Joseph I want to be euthanized too but NOT by gunshot though!! I felt pity for both brothers and their family.

8/10