ViewGuide

Created Jul 21, 2014 12:04AM PST • Edited Apr 15, 2015 10:22AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Bulletproof Heart is a stylishly assembled collection of cliches. There’s not enough star power in Beverly Hills to overcome its just OK screenplay, but Anthony LaPaglia & Mimi Rogers give it the old Hollywood try nonetheless. She’s tremendous as a foxy femme fatale who is sure of what she wants. He’s less so.

   She’s a moviestar, not a great one, but a moviestar nonetheless.
   He’s a TV star, a great one, but not a moviestar. That gives them a limited ceiling, albeit a stylish one.

   LaPaglia plays the kind of guy who cavorts with high-end call-girls who bring scissors so he can cut their bra straps. Helluva lingerie budget when a girl does that, even if she can write it off as a business expense.

   He’s a hitman who needs a shrink, well before The Sopranos carried through on that same concept. Bulletproof Heart gives us the warm and fuzzy side of stone-cold killers, focusing on an idealized cocksman who sports a pompadour and pointy sideburns. Cliche movie machismo follows.

   There’s a surprising lack of chemistry between LaPaglia & Rogers. I blame him, but then she has that effect on men. I mean on me, not him. Maybe her femme fatality cause me to give her too much credit. Nah.

   Bulletproof Heart is worth seeking out. Beware that IMDb files it under the vastly inferior title Killer. That’s a pity. Bulletproof Heart is one of the better titles in modern movie history: strong, sexy, sincere.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   It’s Anthony LaPaglia’s movie to carry. Carry it he does, no mean feat. Yet he doesn’t leap offscreen. That’s because while LaPaglia’s a great star, he’s a great TV star. He’s plenty great as Mick the supercool hitman.

   Mimi Rogers was no longer a young woman when she played this role about leaving a beautiful corpse. Purring like a cougar, she fills the screen and floats off it in a glamorous movie queen performance that harkens back to the Golden Age, with a topless scene thrown in to prove its edgier vintage. Shout out to her stand-in – Heather Chopko. Hey, whose boobs were those anyway?

   Peter Boyle was a young old-man in ‘94, so is sweetly entertaining as a high end hoodlum who runs with LaPaglia’s hit man. It’s nice when Boyle gets to play almost normal.

   Matt Craven plays an annoying hood, annoyingly.

   Cameos

   • Monika Schnarre as a callgirl who brings her own scissors
   • Joseph Maher as a pickled shrink
   • Justine Priestley as a masseuse who gets her closing credit before her scene appears on screen.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    What’s the cinematic equivalent of stagy? Bulletproof Heart feels like a film, not a play, but feels stale and long. By the third reel, I was wishing they’d pull the trigger already so the movie would end. I blame the script, even though it smartly spoofs shrinks and male identity both.

    Great song opens and closes it: Love Is All Around by The Troggs. Chestnut!

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Great 4.0

    Love Is All Around by The Troggs is a terrifically sweet song, giving it a delicious juxtaposition in a film about a hitman.

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Set in New York, shot in Vancouver

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.4

17. Sex Erotic 2.7

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Glib 1.3