American Heart

Moviecut—American Heart

This movie starts out positive...It's about getting a second chance. Jack Kelson (perfectly played by a long-haired Jeff Bridges) gets his second chance when he's released from prison. He's ready to start a new and better life, but unexpectedly his long-not-seen 14 years old son Nick (played by talented Edward Furlong) shows up, insisting to stay with his dad. It isn't easy for Jack to begin a new life, especially because of his new responsibility of taking care of his son. During this period of settling of finding a job, a place to stay..and taking care of a teenager, he faces all kinds of daily life problems.

Jeff Bridges is so good in this film his performance will break your heart. The entire film is beautifully cast and played, with a very strong, and equally heartbreaking performance by Edward Furlong as Bridges' young son. The scenes between the two actors are pivotal and breathtaking. Their relationship is perilous for each of them because they've never known or been a real family, and have never explored their emotional vulnerabilities, or learned how to express love. When Bridges throws a framed photograph of the boy's mother on the floor, smashing the glass, Furlong, in pain and rage, retrieves the photo, and smashes his father's guitar to pieces. Bridges is drunk, but deep inside he truly cannot understand that his son loves his mother. These are characters who have known only the hardest possible life. "American Heart" cuts like the broken pieces of that photograph. This is a terrific film, and Jeff Bridges' finest performance.

I must disagree with, really, all of those rating this film as "good". One reviewer did well to make references to the documentary he/she said this film was kind grounded with. But I don't think the film has much truth to it. Some reviewers here, do well by sharing their inability to care much for Bridges's character, but I couldn't care much about anyone in this version of "Seattle". I lived there from 1967 to 1943 - attended college, but got my BA after 16! years. I worked at part-time jobs at a bit over minimum wages and for awhile lived 4 blocks from "Kelson's" apartment building on Capital Hill. With a job like Jack's I may have earned more. Yes, I had contact with real nice people: students, musicians, even family; but I scarcely so little as SAW anyone like all the characters in this film. Even when I was living in Brooklyn, NY, I rarely saw any people like these. In the mention of the real Seattle documentary, it was said that "help" for people like Kelson was so rare. I'd suggest that people like Kelson were pretty rare in Seattle, too. In the style of presenting the characters here, there is inconsistency - spread out in just a few seconds. Kelson gives a few encouraging words to his son, and celebrates his Alaska plan of rebirth for them together, but when he promises to go earn more cash for rent, he goes out to play music (which he does well, esp. for a street performer). Good plan, but when we see him out there with his tenor guitar(?), he is being thrown out of a restaurant and is so drunk he can barely walk. Why didn't we see any scene to learn why that good plan he had had failed and went totally under.... it looks like he christened his fundraiser by having a dozen stiff drinks. The more normal citizens of Seattle are represented at vanilla androids. They hardly see anything or anyone. Get this > one character (hidden for your reading, now) RUNS onto a big ferry boat, crashing past other riders who get in his way... it's crowded with people boarding the ferry. Then, one of our characters catches up and shoots the other character in full view of many other passengers only a few feet away. Moments later, we see the man, on the ferry deck, alone, no-one seeming to have noticed that the man had been shot, and was dying. This wouldn't have happened that way. In another scene, Furlong's - Nick Kelson, is homeless and on the streets, finally we get to see a "normal" Seattleite drive by, then stop to offer him help. Of course, he's gonna hit on the kid, but Nick gets away. Yes, Seattle has its share of bad folks, but many good people, too. This film could have tried to grapple with the diversity. Gee, Kelson is working, washing windows inside a fancy looking bank lobby. When he see's Nick out on the sidewalk, why doesn't he drop his stuff and run out and talk to him. No, he shouts through the window and swears, screaming all the time. Sure, he gets fired, but how did a guy like this ever manage to get the job? SOMEONE must have given him the benefit of the doubt to hire him in the first place..... ALSO, I doubt the bank was his boss, and couldn't have "fired" him. Wouldn't they have thrown him out, then fired the window cleaning service? The one "good" person besides Nick, I'd say (and whoever gave Jack that job), is Charlotte. She's hard to believe for me though. Nice, yes ... kinda; but she is so accepting of Jack's worst behavior that it can't really help him want to change.

Well, here I am again commenting with nobody listening. I saw it on Showtime a few nights ago, and frankly I don't even know why I have Showtime, or that is, why Showtime is subscribed to in the house where my wife and son and me currently live in North Hollywood after they tried to get rid of me so many times before. I'm such a damn loser, of course I don't blame them. I should be dead by now. But here I am. And they love me, so.. here I am. I've made a lot of dumb-ass comments before on this site. I hate reading most of them, except maybe the one on Fabulous Baker Boys. I could say the reason I didn't even know this film existed is because my son was born in March of 1992 and literally all of my time was spent caring for him that year. So maybe I'm not as much of a loser as I thought. American Heart really hit me hard, though. Powerful mother. I like how the title sounds like a stupid country record, too. Puts it smack where it needs to be: heard by the mainstream. If it wasn't seen by the mainstream, that's nothing more than Sturgeon's Law (95% of everything is crap) applied to general film viewing public. If I was president, I would force feed ala Clockwork Orange certain movies to every citizen - i.e. force each person to view with eyes pinned open until they vomit, then force more viewing. I know this is stupid and didn't work etc. but still.. Those movies would be Wilder's The Apartment, Fabulous Baker Boys and this film. A couple others too, that I can't think of at the moment as I'm hurrying because my wife needs to get on the computer to do her work so we can feed ourselves. Just wanted to say that this film is freaking great, very realistic and reveals EXACTLY what it's like to be an ex-con trying to go straight and how our screwed up society prevents that. Whatever with drama, films, directing, art and other crap. This film isn't about those things. This film has a movie star, Jeff Bridges, and he's freaking great that he would make a film like this. He deserves a damn medal and three halves for doing this realistic stuff about REALLY IMPORTANT issues. Don't fool yourselves, people. Our country sucks when it comes to helping people get their lives together. The parole officer character was REAL, phony helpfulness, totally uncaring in the end. The system creates this screwup, where people in positions to help simply can't get anything done. But also, the Bridges character is a hick screwup. Think about this, people. Don't just go, he's a mean mother. Think about what kind of cultural influences create people like this. I used to dig Fogerty's and Seger's etc. voices in that kind of rock music. But after seeing this film, I'll never want to hear that kind of music again, and I'm a professional musician who has played this stuff on concert stages many times. IT NEEDS TO STOP. That's all. Go home to your kids, people. Be nice. Learn to think like Jack Lemmon. Get off the crud that's messing your head up. Make it to Alaska if that's what it takes. Whatever it takes. Just do it.

I had seen this movie years ago, but recently I bought it and viewed it again. I knew I had liked the movie when I first saw it, but this time around I loved it. It is a great drama movie with a great Father/Son relationship story. Edward Furlong is really great in this film. He plays the role the way a role like this should be played. I would recommend this movie to others who enjoy a good story and a good drama. I thought the ending was sad and personally would have enjoyed a happier ending. Great movie! Kristin

Man, was Jeff Bridges excellent in this! Talk about being pitch perfect in a character who is trying to change and just having the hardest time. Subtle touches, like when he takes away the joint from his son, only to slip it into his own pocket. This is a good film, small gem. Rent it!

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.

I am at fault. I cannot see a father and son so definitely unconnected. This was a sad movie and I kept wishing that both the father and the son would wise up to how each was destroying the other. The father must have known and did know about the young people with which his son was cavorting. He really made no attempt to stem the tide. I cannot see such failures in life who absolutely just don't even try to improve situations in somewhat a sane fashion, or seek help. This movie left me with such a bad aftertaste. And Furlong, how inept his acting was. Bridges was up to par. I give this film a 1 out of 110.

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.