sidney76 One thing is perfectly clear from watching this diamond of a movie. The people who made this film, every person associated with it, absolutely love the medium of film. They recognize and, indeed, created, the magic that comes when a moving, riveting, very human story is told through brilliant performances of a splendid screenplay. This movie is a gift. Every single scene, every word of dialogue, is perfect. Every actor and every actress, no matter how large or how small his or her part, played his or her role stunningly and flawlessly. Most especially, Jamey Sheridan's performance should have earned him an Academy Award nomination.All I can do is say "thank you" and "congratulations" to Bette Gordon, to Nicholas T. Proferes, to each and every actor and actress and to every individual who helped create this marvelous motion picture. I give a film a "10" when it is a movie that deeply moves me and that stays with me and, most dispositively, when I know I will watch it again and again. HANDSOME HARRY is a sure "10!"

MBunge 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.

airdrieguy Misleading description of movie as the crime is well known to those who committed it and everyone seems genuinely sorry so not sure what the point of the movie is. You only maim the ones you love? You will sleep with anyone and mess with anyone's emotions because it will drag out the movie? It will take an endless amount of time to drive from somewhere in upstate New York to Miami but only minutes to drive home? Disjointed vignettes of one man's search for absolution is how I would describe this movie. Too much happens for which there is no explanation and the explanations provided are in no way consistent with the whom the characters claim to be.

hughman55 You know, if you don't have a good script you don't have a chance of ending up with a good movie. The exposition in this film is way long and is filled with flat dialog and cardboard characters. The "plot twist", which did surprise me, was unfulfilling because there is never a point in the story where any suspense, or empathy for the characters, is built up. If you blink you will miss Steve Buscemi and Campbell Scott, who are both very good for the short time they appear. It really is a shame because the plot is very intriguing: two men reunite, former lovers in the Navy, whose relationship ended when the more closeted one at the time joined in with other sailors in gay bashing the other to cover for himself. While I wouldn't presume to suggest "how" to write a screenplay around this story, I would say don't do it this way. It was like watching paint dry. Paint that's a color you don't particularly like. The story ends without forgiveness or resolution, which in and of itself is not a bad way to end. But, if you never developed an interest in the characters, their struggles, or the story itself, that it remains unresolved is just one more sour note on top of all the others. As compelling as this story is on paper, it was delivered with such detachment and hack dialog that it really just comes off as a wasted opportunity. How they got Steve Buscemi, Campbell Scott, and John Savage, to board this nose dive is inexplicable. I wish it had been good. I really do...