directed by:
Leroy Nguyen written by: Leroy Nguyen genre: Action, Drama |
"Bro, how would you feel if you caught your little sister naked, with the moon shining off some sasquatch ass…" I don't know much about all that, but I do what it's like to BE the sasquatch, yessir. "The Brokenhearted" is the story of three friends – Sonny, James, and Winston. Whether or not they're going to be lifelong friends is essentially what they're trying to determine. James is clearly struggling as a young martial artist with what appears to be a potential alcohol problem. Winston is looking to get the money he's owed - and has no issues with showing up at a dude's work to get it, even if that means he's trying to collect in front of someone's family. Sunny seems to be in the middle of it all as the perennial f**k up, trying to figure out how to keep friends from becoming enemies. James is at the end of his rope trying to keep his business afloat, but he's at the point where he's considering whether or not he should burn the whole place down and wondering if the insurance money would be more than what he's currently worth. Obviously, there's a lot to unpack in this film, and as "The Brokenhearted" starts to open up its storyline, it's clear that doing business with friends is about as bad a choice as one can make. Soon enough, Winston sends his goons to try & find James' way out in the wilderness, but there's no place far enough away for James to hide from his own troubled past. The threats are real, and James is clearly running out of time if he wants to escape.
Told over a span of time during their on/off friendships, one of the things you'll appreciate most about the way "The Brokenhearted" moves is that it can quickly go from being fairly lighthearted to deadly serious on the inside of a single second. There are some decent jokes and insults hurled along the way, but the tension never leaves the screen or the storyline of "The Brokenhearted" – you can feel the potential for danger hanging in the air over every scene you watch, no matter who's laughing or what's being said. Writer/Director Leroy Nguyen has done an exceptional job of making us uncomfortable as we watch his film, using atmosphere, mood, and tone to his advantage as he shifts between the past and the present. The acting from the main cast of three is completely solid, and they get a solid assist from the surrounding cast, even though it's relatively small. Characters like James' sister Liz, played by Jackie SJ Kim, have some really effective scenes early on to help establish a layer of emotion in this film. Other small parts like Joey, Tony & Troy, and Carlos & Ali all make an impact even if they're not in the movie for very long, and it's crystal clear that they each took their assignments on this film seriously. We learn important details, like how, despite being roughly the size of a small house, Sonny's impact on the streets has started to collapse, affecting how Winston is regarded as the boss. When "business" really needs to be handled, though, make no mistake; Sonny is still ready to throw down and throw hands – the action scenes in "The Brokenhearted" all have a place & a purpose, and they're convincing, which I like. To me, there's almost nothing worse than fight scenes that have no place, and even worse when they don't have the right choreography – I was happy to see that Nguyen checked all the right boxes and kept a sharp eye on his attention to detail in the story, and in what we see onscreen. What I really love is that no matter how good the acting is, or the characters are, Nguyen made sure that there's a real story at the center of "The Brokenhearted." Truly, credit where credit is due, it's not like we haven't all seen the mob/gangster story before, whereby someone owes some money to someone else, and collection time has come – it's not easy to make that feel fresh, exciting, and new, but Leroy has done exactly that with his film. Casting plays a key role, for sure. Winston is excellent as the main boss man, Sonny is exceptional as the heavy hitter, and of course, James delivers the heart we need as the struggling friend just trying to pay his bills in an impossible situation with the weight of the world on his shoulders. As you watch "The Brokenhearted" continue on, you really start to feel like there's no way that James is going to be able to avoid the beatdown that Sonny is eventually going to have to place on him. It's all portrayed the right way, in my opinion, it's all very "delicate – you say one wrong thing and the whole thing goes to shit" – and we feel that pressure continuing to build as we watch. I feel like we've all been James at one point in time, so the way Samuel Joon Lee played him felt very real and highly relatable. As for Winston, we've seen this kind of character before, but the way that Travis Davis played him, you feel the tough position he's been put in, where he's uncertain of how to balance business and friendship, or whether or not he actually can. As for Sonny, I felt like Leroy Nguyen played him brilliantly – he wrote the part, of course, but the way he straddles both worlds in between being a stand-up guy and the strongman for Winston was nothing short of perfect. He's as fun as he is menacing – it just depends on what side of him you end up on – but that's up to you.
In any event, I felt like of the main three, he was the most natural in his role – and I loved how his storyline entwined with Liz as "The Brokenhearted" continued. I was genuinely impressed by the whole cast and how much Leroy got out of them all. Each character gets their own mini-chapter in this story as it plays out, and while the ominous feeling that nothing much is going to work out very well for our main characters in the end, one of the best aspects of "The Brokenhearted" is that we never give up on the hope that the bonds of friendship or family will fail either. Everyone has the chance and a true opportunity to do the right thing, and it's really just a matter of whether or not they'll find the inner strength and courage required to do it. The writing from Nguyen is extremely well done, but even more crucially, he found the perfect cast to bring his words to life onscreen and display his story in an undeniably convincing way. James himself might get the nod from me for having the biggest highlight in the movie though, when he steals the show after being somewhat forced to explain his troubles out loud - and tell Winston who he really is. His emotions are spot-on, and it's one of the most effective scenes in the film, which leads right into the main meat of the crux in the plotline shortly after. Winston isn't exactly who he's been pretending to be, and it's because of that, they all might be in even bigger trouble than any of them had realized…so big in fact, that even Sonny might not be able to fight his way out of it. Once you get to the halfway mark on "The Brokenhearted," you get that wonderful pit in your stomach that feels like you're about to witness this group of friends speeding directly downhill into trouble that they'll never get out of. And it's sad! We want things to work out for James, Sonny, and Winston – but the odds are against them without question, and with each ticking second, it seems like a positive outcome is way less likely. Aside from the occasional punch that doesn't land with the typical Hollywood THUD that we're used to, and a little bit of drag in the second half of the film that comes along with trying to do so much inside of less than two hours, I remained fully impressed by "The Brokenhearted" – honestly, it's a great film with a lot of heart to it. Considering it's all about the commerce of a life of crime at the core of its story, what you'll love about this the most is that Leroy circles around to show us the most valuable currency of all, which is the bond between friends. I'm going with a well-deserved four stars out of five for "The Brokenhearted" – it's thought-provoking material executed with true professionalism, and a story that you'll remember. |
More To Check Out.
|