HEAR MY SONG
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
100 min., R, Drama , 1991 Director: Peter Chelsom Cast: Ned Beatty, Adrian Dunbar, Shirley-Anne Field, Tara Fitzgerald, William Hootkins, David McCallum
Adrian Dunbar is going to be evicted from the building where his club is located. He promises the landlords that he is going to get Irish tenor Ned Beatty to sing at the club, and they let him stay open. Instead of Beatty, Dunbar ends up with an impersonator. Dunbar loses the club, his girlfriend Tara Fitzgerald, and his friends. He sets out on a voyage to Ireland to try to locate Beatty so he can get Fitzgerald back.
HEAR MY SONG is a wonderful film, is well written and beautifully filmed. It is well worth going to see if it comes to a theater near you. Personally, this film didn't sound the most interesting to me, but it was playing as a double feature to the other film I went to see, so I figured I might as well watch this film too. I was surprised at how much I liked it. On a scale of zero to five, I give HEAR MY SONG a four. It is rated R for female nudity, adult situations, and explicit language.
The locations used for this film were great. The Irish country side where Beatty was living looked beautiful. Ned Beatty, who is really starting to get old (53, I think) did a great job, even though he didn't do his own singing. Some opera singer, I think, did all of the singing for him. Dunbar, who I don't think I have ever seen before in the movies, did a wonderful job and has a potential in movies, at least in alternative cinema. Tara Fitzgerald, although she wasn't on the screen very much, did a memorable performance. The rest of the supporting cast also did a great job.
The film was interesting. I fully enjoyed watching it and never got bored. This is alternative cinema almost at its best. I highly suggest that if you have not yet seen this film that you attempt to. I don't think that you will be disappointed. I certainly wasn't. I feel that this film should have gotten more exposure than it did. At least in my area it only played for four days, and I don't think that that was near enough time. I feel that this film probably would have done very well at a mainstream theater which would have allowed more people to see it.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews