A Brilliant Conflict

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

With a relaxed, gliding surface and a jagged soul underneath, Handsome Harry is a rather…well, pleasant isn't the word to use for a tale of middle-aged female desperation and just-plain-aged male melancholy. Most of these characters are on the back end of their useful lives and they know it. Their happiness and their own futures are no longer in their own hands and they're dependent on others to an extent they don't like to admit to themselves. Everyone in this story is practically a stranger to everyone else, even spouses, lovers and one-time best friends. But what draws you into this film and carries you along is the honest humanity of people grappling with their awkward, messy and diminishing lives.Harry Sweeney (Jamey Sheridan) is a silver-haired fox. A small town electrician, he's the sort of beguiling charmer who can still make any woman over 30 smile while being guy every other man over 50 wishes he was more like. But when Harry gets a call from an old Vietnam era Navy buddy, he has to let his easy smile drop and take a journey back to the most awful moment of his life. The buddy, Thomas Kelley (Steve Buscemi), is dying and asks Harry for some help saying out of Hell. 35 years earlier, Harry, Tommy and three others almost beat a 6th friend to death after finding out he was gay. Tommy thinks he's the one who crushed the guy's hand with a metal armature and begs Harry to travel to Miami and seek forgiveness on his behalf. The trip brings Harry to the doorsteps of the other three, now ensconced in lives not anywhere as comfortable as they seem. Rheems (John Savage) has had his manhood and his family fall to ashes. Porter (Aidan Quinn) has a knot of anger and self-loathing in his heart that hasn't loosed with the passing years. Gebhardt (Titus Welliver) has made himself into his best idea of a man, only to fall into a trap from which he can escape only by destroying everything good in his heart. And their victim, David Kagan (Campbell Scott)? He's the one who seeks out Harry and forces him to be honest about himself for perhaps the first time in his life.The plot of this film isn't anything to write home about, serving only as the stage upon which Harry and others play out the little scenes of their lives, but the performances more than make up for it. Led by Jamey Sheridan's accessible torment, Steve Buscemi's despair and the simmering anger of John Savage, Aidan Quinn and Titus Welliver, you can't take your eyes off this cast. And that's not even getting into the painful loneliness of Mariann Mayberry as Rheem's wife and Karen Young as a waitress who's carried a torch for Harry for many years. Watching these actors play these roles is a marvelous experience. Campbell Scott doesn't quite make it, but that's mostly because Kagan is more a plot device bringing the movie to an end rather than a real person.Handsome Harry would have been even better if the plot had given those performances some direction and used them to build to a conclusion instead of letting one simply occur. This sort of story should be like walking up a flight of stairs, with each step taking you to a new level of drama and emotion until you reach the top, which is a culmination of every step taken before. Handsome Harry is more like taking one step up and then walking along a flat beam. You're off the ground but you never get any higher than when you started. As engrossing as these individual scenes are, they don't do enough to connect with or build upon one another. That stands out most clearly at the end, which is supposed to be emotionally crushing but isn't that much worse than what we've previously seen from Harry's friends and their own personal tortures.This isn't a feel good film, but it isn't a feel bad movie either. Handsome Harry is a motion picture that just makes you feel. And that's more than worth watching.

I saw this film because my husband and I are fans of Jamey Sheridan as well as some of the other actors. It was great to see John Savage, as always! We both enjoyed the film. The beginning stumbled a little for me; some of the dialog was stilted and stiff in its exposition and the opening few scenes were, overall, bland with nothing new. My other problem was with the editing of the sequences. I could not tell where Harry was, literally, in a number of the scenes. I didn't know whether he was driving far or near. But that's a small problem. The acting, as previously stated, was very good and it's a testament to the writer, director, and producer that they were able to get this impressive cast together and get this small film made in these precarious times. Once the opening scenes in Harry's adopted home town were over, the movie picked up and became interesting. Jamey Sheridan was quite wonderful in the role. It made me think of his role in "The Ice Storm" which was also wonderful. If you like small intimate dramas, then this is something you can really enjoy. It's a shame that it is not seen more, but hopefully, it will have a new life on Pay Cable.

On to the movie, it was pretty entertaining as far as indie films go. Jamie Sheridan played a complex, tortured and in the end, cowardly role. The destruction of his own life and other women around him is very sad indeed and art mirrors life. Not the happiest film certainly not a four star but certainly worth renting if you like something different than buildings getting blown up and cameras that spin. The tender scenes both gay and straight are done realistically and leave little to the imagination where sex is involved. I like Jamie as an actor and I was surprised that he took to this role and even more surprising was seeing his name as one of the producers. Good for you, Jamie. Handsome indeed.

Perhaps this will not be a very fair or complete review. We could not get through this movie no matter how hard we tried.The telegraphed dialog and the wooden delivery of the actors, particularly with Mr. Sheridan, made me feel like I was watching a re-run of Matlock or Murder She Wrote.Un-inventive, predictable and sophomoric are words that come to mind.In one of the first scenes from the film, when we see Harry in his favorite restaurant, I was waiting for someone to start listing all the possible side effects of taking the mood altering pharmaceutical they were pitching... oh wait, this was supposed to be a movie. But it sure seems like a commercial for senior medicine.If you like thrillers from the Lifetime network, this is for you.If you like well made movies that have believable characters, look elsewhere.