American Heart

An ex-convict (Jeff Bridges) is tracked down by his estranged teenage son (Edward Furlong), and the pair try to build a relationship and life together in Seattle.

Elements of the screenplay for "American Heart" were based on material originally covered in the director's prior documentary film "Streetwise" (1984), such as the relationship between Dewayne and his father. Having not seen the earlier film, I cannot comment on the connection any more than that.

Not surprisingly, Edward Furlong won an award for this, and Jeff Bridges is as great as ever (he is quite the natural). It is a shame that Furlong went on to a more questionable future. One cannot help but wonder if the early success tainted his later life.

American Heart casts Jeff Bridges in the role of a recently paroled convict who would like to make a fresh start of things. But from the gitgo he's saddled with a responsibility of his own making. His 14 year old son Edward Furlong runs away from the uncle he's been staying with and hooks up with Bridges.

Sad to say but it's like they're doomed from the start. They live in an SRO hotel on Seattle's seamier side. Bridges is working as a window washer, barely making ends meet. Furlong tries to enroll in school, but the bureaucracy proves too much. He falls in with a lot of street kids including child hooker Tracey Kapisky who reminds me very much of Jodie Foster in Taxi. She's lives in the same SRO with her mother who's in the same profession and jealous of her daughter.

Bridges also has a younger associate, Don Harvey who'd like to get him back in the criminal life. He's also found a bit of romance with a prison pen pal in Lucinda Jenney.

American Heart is a real downer of a film, but very well done. Sad to these are very real people. But oddly enough it follows the same plot line as the Shirley Temple movie Now and Forever with Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard. Sort of like an R-rated version of it.

This film is not one for those who like happy endings. Still I think it is one Jeff Bridges finest screen achievements.

This is a dramatic, narrative film by Martin Bell, the director of the excellent documentary "Streetwise". And while it is obvious Bell was a little uncomfortable with the narrative format, it is one of the few independent films of the 1990's that doesn't suffer from the Quentin Tarantino syndrome--i.e. it is not just a pastiche of other movies the director has seen. It's clear Bell based a lot of this movie on real life. In fact, many of the characters here were obviously based on real people in "Streetwise"--the kid and his ex-con father, the tomboy lesbian, the 14-year-old amateur hooker. The movies suffers a little in comparison to early Gus Van Sant films ("Mala Noche","Drugstore Cowboy", "My Own Private Idaho")which had similar down-and-out characters and were also set in the American Northwest. But many will find this film refreshingly honest and less pretentious, at least, than some of Van Sant's films.

What really makes this film is the acting. It marked Jeff Bridges return to independent film (five or six years before "The Big Lebowski"), and his performance here makes one forgive him for the Hollywood crap he made in the 80's like "Against All Odds". Edward Furlong is also very good. I remember reading some alarmist claptrap about him in Premiere magazine around the time of this movie, about how he was dating a 30-year-old woman (oh, the horror! the horror!) and about to become another young Hollywood casualty. Well, starting with this film he ended up carving a nice little niche for himself in independent film (i.e. "Pecker", "Animal Factory"). Turns out that just because you're not starring in "Terminator 3" it doesn't necessarily mean you're sharing needles in a crack house with guys named Corey and girls named Shannen. And as a little icing on the cake this movie has a great Tom Waits theme song which you can't find any of his albums. Definitely a recommended movie.

I have to admit being somewhat biased toward this film, as I was living in the apartment building (at the time) where most of the filming took place! The rent was $225/month if I remember correctly, and it was indeed a "studio"... complete with bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a lot of roaches :-) (the room used in the movie was somewhat nastier than the one I was in - there was a top floor, a middle and a basement, and I was living in one of the middle floor rooms at the time). But I got to see a great deal of the process of filming a movie (extremely interesting and educational) as well as meeting Jeff Bridges and Edward Furlong (no, I don't appear anywhere in the film as either an extra or an actor). As for the movie itself, it turned out quite a bit better than I had expected. Martin Bell is underrated as a director, and it's unfortunate that lately he's concentrated on TV rather than movies - he really is talented (See "Streetwise," 1984). The ending of American Heart really was sad, although we've seen it before in a lot of movies. Yet another reflection on the sad state of today's society.

And now, a small revelation... in the movie, the apartment where "Jack" and his son lived was portrayed as being on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. Actually, the building used in filming was on Capitol Hill, a few blocks west of Broadway. No, I'm not going to give away the street address or the name of the apartments, sorry :-).

My overall review for "American Heart" - 9/10.

AMERICAN HEART (1993) **** Jeff Bridges, Edward Furlong, Don Harvey, Tracey Kapisky. Bleak yet truthful look at a father/son relationship in a world of despair. Bridges gives a modulatedly depicted performance as an ex-con fresh from jail and confronted with his teenage son, who is also on the path of hard knocks. Great rapport between Bridges and Furlong as well as a hopeless demise that maintains despite its moments of carefree aimlessness. Bridges co-produced as well.