Handsome Harry

I watched this moving while knowing NOTHING about it - and I am VERY glad I did.

There are so many movies out there that I always spend lots of time looking through IMDb to decide whether a movie is worth my time or not. First I check the rating, and then if it is over 5.5 I read the summary and maybe some reviews and sometimes the Message board comments.

I'm SO GLAD I didn't know anything about this movie when I watched it. I won't spoil the movie for you by pointing out the main conflict the movie takes a long time to get around to telling us all about.

But that is what I liked about this movie. It tells the story about a crime that occurred long ago - and we just start to get hints about what really happened - slowly - as the story plays out - and it is rather fascinating to watch the truth come to dawn on the main character.

The story is fairly obviously about Harry who is asked by his friend Thomas to do a favour for him on his deathbed and apologize to their long ago friend for something Thomas did that he thought he was going to go to hell for.

Harry was drunk the night this fight happened, and he can't remember much of what happened - but what I think is really cool is that by the end of the movie I'm starting to wonder if his mind made him intentionally forget what happened. Sometimes what we've done is so traumatic we choose to forget what we did.

Very painful memories from a very long time ago come back to Harry - and parts of this movie really made me cry.

This movie deserves 8 or 9 stars - and it is SO, SO much better to see something like this than some shallow characters in a car chase and fights and shootouts, blah blah blah.

I loved this movie. It sneaks up on you. It's message is obviously to be honest with yourself and don't let your life pass you by without telling those you love how you feel.

Don't miss this movie - and trust me - and take my word for it - please watch this movie before you read any other reviews.

It's better to see this movie before you know what it is about.

I did - and I'm glad I did.

This movie is about taking responsibility for one's actions, no matter how reprehensible. A man whose reputation is seemingly beyond reproach in fact has been harboring two secrets from the distant past, both of which suggest a darker and more sinister side of his personality. In a way, this movie is almost like a contemporary version of The Picture of Dorian Grey. On the surface, everything seems well, but that's merely a sham covering up a spiritual ugliness that sooner or later will be revealed. The presents the story in a forthright manner and is well-acted. The movie's principal character did a really rotten and hurtful thing and has been living a lie. How he resolves these issues is what this movie is about. The movie deals with these issues candidly and effectively, without bombarding the audience with pretentious and superfluous platitudes. Instead, the movie tells the story and leaves it to the audience to judge as to whether the man is worthy of forgiveness and respect.

Handsome Harry (2009)

The title is perfectly understated, and a bit misleading, whatever your first impressions. Harry is the main character, a man around 60 with memories of a brutal beating he and some fellow sailors gave a mate of theirs in the Viet Nam era. Long ago. The main thread of the movie follows him as he revisits each of the participants, including the man who was beaten.

With such a solid structure you are in some ways hooked. Each encounter has its own twists. And each time we see, through flashbacks, a sharpening picture of what really happened. It's a fascinating building of a story, even with some weakness here and there in the writing and acting.

And key to it all is a misguided homophobia, and what turns out to be a more complicated fear of being outed and a little self-loathing. Some of the characters Harry visits are finely tuned types, well acted. We see how everyone has changed, and how their sense of who they are, alone and to each other, has also changed.

Most of all we see Harry come to terms with his own demons on this. Jamey Sheridan plays him with studied restraint, and yet gives the man enough believable nuances to keep it honest. The biggest name in the cast is the first of Harry's encounters, Steve Buscemi, but if you are a fan of his (as you should be) be prepared that his role is really limited. And John Savage appears as one of the group, too. There are some strains in the other actors' parts either because of their ability to pull off a mostly talking movie or because the writing itself stumbles. In particular you'll see Harry barge into a classroom and interrupt the teacher and sort of take over the podium for a minute, and it's so out of character and unlikely it almost punctures the whole movie.

But hang in there. The final chapter or two is intense and written with poignancy. And it might surprise some viewers. A strong finish to a good, sometimes lugubrious, somewhat strained telling.

(2009) Handsome Harry DRAMA

Harry Sweeney or "Handsome Harry" (Jamey Sheridan) hence the title makes a promise to former army friend Thomas Kelley (Steve Buscemi) before his passing, that he were to find and locate another former army recruit to whom they used to physically mock, tease and assault just because he was gay. And from the time Harry begins his journey to the time he goes and finds him, we're then shown in flashbacks some of the mistreatment or belittlement just because Harry thought it was what his army peers had wanted. The subject matter was much more relevant during the "don't say gay!' law than the current time.

The reviews here are splendid, articulate, fair and respectful. I simply wanted to add how, at the close of the film, clever the screenwriter broadened the flashbacks to the young Kagan and the young Sweeney. We know there's a shower encounter that causes Kagan to be outed as gay but we are made curious by how Sweeney is involved and how the film shows more and more details about Sweeney as if his own memory is allowing the truth to become conscious. I thought it especially heart- wrenching when we see the young Kagan and young Sweeney playing a duet at Kagan's grand piano in his elegant home. I had not heard of this film and was merely browsing YouTube. I chose it from its title without noting it was a full movie. I could not stop watching.