The Leading Man

The Leading Man cast Jon Bon Jovi as a charming seducer willing to help a friend for consideration. Bon Jovi was looking to spread his wings a little and try straight acting like Crosby and Sinatra did as the best examples of singers who expanded their careers.

In fact Bon Jovi is in London after suffering a discreet blacklist involving him bedding the wife of some studio executive. He's hoping to jumpstart his career again on the London stage. He's in a play that Lambert Wilson wrote, in fact in the title role of The Hit Man.

Wilson has his problems, he's falling in love with his leading lady Thandie Newton. No problem, Bon Jovi offers to nail Wilson's wife Anna Gallena for favors to be named later. It works like a charm.

I have to say that the climax which occurs at the premier of the play and the aftermath kind of fooled me. Which is the mark of a good film in my humble opinion. Bon Jovi did a good job in the lead and got good support from the other three in the foursided triangle. In fact he went above and beyond the call of duty.

Two others to note in the cast are Barry Humphries as the director and veteran actor David Warner as a veteran actor.

Looking at his credits I see Bon Jovi decided to concentrate on music, his career choice.

The center of this film is the interesting performance of Jon Bon Jovi as a somewhat mysterious actor who is portraying a hit man in a play written by Lambert Wilson. Bon Jovi is very effective and keeps you guessing throughout. Wilson is excellent as a confused playwright half in love with an ingenue but who finds, when the chips are down, that he's not quite ready to give up his wife. With such an attractive cast and wondering about the motives of Jon Bon Jovi, the movie is quite intriguing, though draggy in parts.

When I watched this I enjoyed the plot and the fact that any twists in the story were emotional twists (people's feelings and motives being revealed - sometimes to the person themselves). However I felt that John Bon Jovi was not quite right in the main role and his dialogue sometimes sounded like he was reading it. However the other main roles of playwright, his wife and his lover were well played and fitted their roles well.

Overall the film is enjoyable and sensuous. It's a story where all the action takes place in people's hearts - so if you're into that sort of drama then this should be for you.

This movie was kinda weird. It had Jon Bon Jovi in it...so of course...I HAD to see it. The actors were good, the story line was good, but it just didn't CLICK to me...lol. Jon Bon Jovi's acting was horrible in it...sorry. :( I love him, but *shakes head* I thought at this point of his acting career he should've stuck with singing. I don't know what it was tho. The movie dragged out badly in some parts and I kept checking my watch thru out the whole thing. Sure...there were some 'good' parts in it...*evil grin*, but I didn't really enjoy it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie when I saw it at the cinema years ago. I hadn't expected much, had gone there just to see Jon Bon Jovi's performance in it but it'd be fair to say that the movie gave me more than what I'd bargained for. In the first place, it was not filled with clichés and most of the cast did a real good job through the movie. And, most of all, Robin Grange was so much fun to watch, it was a very smart pick to choose Jon Bon Jovi to play such an irresistible, charming character -if you know what I mean. All in all, the movie was surprisingly good for me and through the years I've seen it at least a dozen times and what I think of it still hasn't changed.