source: Heartless

Moviecut—Heartless

This was a good movie. The cast were excellent. Simone Lahbib played a great part. The movie gave me fond memories of Scotland, i actually thought it was filmed on the Isle of Skye when you have a picturesque scenery, around the lochs of Scotland . The friendly nature of Scottish people, your half way there. I think the previous comments did not reflect the true spirit of the movie. I was amazed the movie was filmed at East Kilbride

A predictable movie that ambles along in picture postcard style with all the right buttons being pressed along the way as a self centered divorce lawyer turns into a spontaneous loving new age man being cheered on by every stereotype normally found in a Scottish village from the wise but feisty grandma down to the shy but honest rejected suitor. Of course the scenery and music are wonderful but these alone are not enough to carry the movie. The only worthwhile thing about it was the performance of the lead actress Simone Lahbib who somehow was wildly attractive without being overtly sexy at all. I would watch this movie just to see her playing the widow who discovers she still has a heart.

Tourist Scotland meets a jet set London money-maker. OK so its stereotyped characters, clichés and locations, but it didn't loose too much for that. Angus Deyton isn't the UKs greatest actor but he dose have a cynical charm which made this work. Transplant surgery is quite a ripe subject for writers and this isn't that original, but its funny and heart-warming (if you will pardon the pun) and even though you think you know the ending, it keeps you guessing all the way. Good. The acting is convincing and there is just the right amount of humour. Its touching without ever going over the top and kept me well hooked. Bad. Do all Scotsmen outside Glasgow wear kilts and dance round swords all the time? If you think yes, then this would not be a bad point and you will have a set of bagpipes in your living room and say D'ya Ken? Not many do though and this shortbread tin view of Scotland did start to get on my nerves. Overall, I found it an entertaining story and well worth a watch.

The title doesn't mean anything by someone being nasty and not care about something, it means literally a guy who is heartless. Basically Angus Deayton as Harry Holland is driving along the road on his motorbike without a care in the world when he crashes. When he wakes up he feels really different, the doctor tells him he had to have a heart transplant. It's not long after that he finds out that his heart has changed him, he hates some thing that he used to like and he wants to go to the place where the donor used to live. He falls in love with the donor's ex-wife. In the end he went back to normal and got his old heart back, but still stayed with her. Some good giggly moments and a very well cast Angus Deayton, a good made-for-TV film drama. Very good!

May be not a complete waste of one and a half hours, but I can think of plenty of better ways to spend the time. In fairness though this one off TV drama did have a couple of things going for it, the beautiful scenery for one, and the acting wasn't all that bad. The problem I had with it though was the script, painfully predictable, and it had been done before. In essence there was not much need to watch the program, the advertising trailer pretty much gave you all you need to know to plot the course of the story from beginning to end. However I managed to sit through it, and I must admit at some points laughing at the humour, the dog incident and the small Scottish band were notable moments. They could not save it though. There were small glimpses that the cast and crew were trying to produce something with meaning and purpose, in fact the only reason I can think of for why they had Angus Deayton with that ridiculous hair cut was to make him look uglier, but in the end the inevitable predictability of it all was its down coming.

...including the sublime, divine Simone Lahbib. Here all dark and wind-blown. Exotic. Earthy. Really, the woman is a chameleon. I've yet to see her play anything near the same role twice. And the only reason I've seen her in as much brit TV as I have, most of it unavailable in the states, is the kindness of fellow "Bad Girls" fans. Thank you. Aye, I'd watch her in anything. This film has some of the quirk and fey scots charm of the series "Monarch of the Glen"...which Ms. Lahbib also graced for a season. A simple little romantic comedy for TV, it reminds one a bit of the movie written and directed by actress Bonnie Hunt, "Return to Me," since the plot involves a heart transplant recipient unaccountably drawn towards the widowed partner of the deceased. The music is lovely and will stick in your head afterwards. It's a confection light as candy floss (or the recurring balloons sent over the loch)but there are some genuine heartfelt moments that will stay with you. Though even romantic comedy in Scottish hands has something of a brash in-your-face tone to it.

star rating:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs Top divorce lawyer Harry Holland (Angus Deayton) earns much and lives immorally,until a sudden heart attack finds his life being saved by an emergency donor.Ah well,sh*t happens,tomorrow's another day,thinks Harry,deciding to carry on with things,until he notices changes in his personality that he becomes driven to get to the bottom of.He travels to a remote Scottish town and befriends the widow of the man whose heart saved his life and her two children and from there starts to learn about love and what really matters in life. Following News-of-the-World revelations of his coke and hookers shame whilst his girlfriend was pregnant with his child,Angus Deayton found his once flourishing TV career coming to an abrupt halt until all he could get work doing was presenting Top 100 of this-or-that shows on Sky One or Channel 5.But he seems to be trying to make his TV comeback sch-tick go one step further with this schmaltzy,well-worn tale of the immoral guy who suffers set-back and discovers what really matters in life,blah blah blah...And herein may lie the problem. Deayton just seems really ill-suited for this role.His brilliant sarcastic wit and clever put-downs (even transfixing this onto himself by appearing on a hilarious edition of his Have I Got News for You show to be grilled on the week his career-shattering revelations were made public!) were what made him famous and what no-doubt netted him a fortune.So being the lead in this sentimental,sappy,Robin Williams kinda stuff seems a long stretch for him.There are occasional flourishes of said sarcastic wit present in bits of the script,but mostly he just unsuccessfully attempts to broaden his range and fails miserably.Some of the supporting cast are pretty good,but when they're upstaging their lead star,you just know something is wrong.And the other problem,as I've already mentioned,is simply how tired and unoriginal this all is.It just seems to push all the right buttons and amble along aimlessly until the end rolls up. It's not a total failure.As I said,some of the acting's okay and it even manages to be a little funny in parts,but mostly,apart from being a clever pun on the leading character's predicament,Heartless only seems to describe the effort put into the film as a whole.**

source: Heartless