Crooked Hearts

The cast looked promising, but I was stunned to read the other comments about this movie. To compare this to Shakespeare would make the Bard spin in his grave. Not only did it not "grow on me" but I found it increasingly painful to view. The pain then turned to laughter as we started realize how stupid this movie actually was with it's predictable dialog and it's made-for-TV feel, straight from the Lifetime channel.The only lessons to be learned here besides always making your socks match your shirt, is that you should never keep incriminating items. The Warrens are one messed up family. So if there is absolutely nothing else on, It's one of those "it's so bad it's good" things. I give it 3 stars!

This film starts out as a portrail of idealistic family life, then desends into something much deeper and darker. Many facets of relationships are shown, especially between father and sons. I enjoyed this film I liked the central theme of "can you trust another member of your family" which seemed to be concurrent throughout the film

As a young boy, Tom admires his older brother Charley (Vincent D'Onofrio). He follows him to the local diner hangout. Charley talks to Tom's crush waitress Jennetta. She tells them that she's willing to wait for their father (Peter Coyote) to settle matters. Some years later, Tom (Peter Berg) drops out of Berkley to go home. Ask (Noah Wyle), Charley, and Cassie (Juliette Lewis) are still living at home with mom (Cindy Pickett) and dad. Charley is bitter to escape but can't pull away from the gravity of the family. Tom dates Marriet Hoffman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is equally adrift in the world after leaving L.A. The family is slowly imploding from everybody's secrets.

This is one dysfunctional family. I like everyone in this cast although this may not be their most impressive performances. I was feeling this movie for the first half until the fire. I like the fire but the fire should be the climax. It can't get more climatic than the fire. The stuff after the fire is the family chasing their own tales. This family is not getting fixed without a healthy dose of psychotherapy. They need a cleansing fight to finish off the story so that they can start anew. It just drags on too long.

I saw this film recently on cable and found it almost Shakespearean in its depiction of family trouble: fundamental character flaws or weaknesses leading to tragedy, pride keeping the truth from being known when it would be better to bring things out in the open, old secrets coming back to wreak havoc.

It's not always an easy film to watch, because you want to stop certain things from happening. But every character is multi-dimensional and real, and - as in Shakespeare - there is humor in the story and hope for recovery and redemption in the end. I cared about these people and their situation.

Slow going at times, but give it a chance - it lingers.

My late wife and I always agreed that whenever Malkin called a movie 2 1/2 stars, it tended to be a winner. 3 stars tended to be way overrated on the basis of the actors' reputations, and four stars meant predictable Hollywood hoke and Malkin's tendency to suck up to the industry. See his contradictory reviews of Sergeant Rutledge and Breaker Morant.

I spent my career as a stage director with a hiatus doing TV. My search for segues became unrelenting and I was particularly impressed with the way in which this film flowed. Character development was also impressive. The extent to which the family was/had been dysfunctional was marvelously understated. Certainly a minimalist triumph.

Some very strong performances here, deft writing, and superior editing make for a seamless production. The end result is a small treasure. Reminds me of Virgin Suicides.