The Broken Hearts Club Movie Review

The sad-sack group of gay men have already become a budding Hollywood cliché, but The Broken Hearts Club manages to rise above its otherwise menial trappings to be a better-than-average comedy that's still unabashedly about "being gay," while still carrying broad appeal for everyone.

With a cast largely composed of non-gay men, you'd be surprised how convincing the likes of Timothy Olyphant and Dean Cain are at playing it fey. Olyphant stars as a likeable photographer/waiter looking to focus his life away from destructive one-night relationships and into something more meaningful. His roommate (Cain) is no help, a pretty boy actor who lands anyone he wants in the sack. Coupled with a half-dozen other characters, the fellows hang out at a restaurant & bar called Jack's Broken Heart (run by none other than a hilarious John Mahoney, who spends Saturday nights crooning in an ill-advised drag costume and the weekends managing the worst softball team in West Hollywood).

Numerous subplots abound while the cast goes through its daily rituals in a loosely formed narrative. Some are quite amusing -- such as Cain's character's pursuit of anything on legs. Some are touching -- like Olyphant's earnest soul searching. And some are a bit tired -- notably a poorly developed yet overplayed on-again/off-again relationship between two of the crew, and a subplot involving Nia Long and Mary McCormack as two lesbians trying to get pregnant. (Sorry, you can put a kerchief on Mary McCormack, but that doesn't make her a lesbian.)

Nonetheless, The Broken Hearts Club is a good "gay" movie with rare crossover appeal. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a reasonably good time out of a motion picture that hits on some serious topics while being anything but serious.



But wild hearts can't be broken.