Is it a bad thing to see a movie and deem it good by standards different from which you would judge other movies? Let me explain.
Broken Hearts Club is a good movie. A little corny and certainly more than a little predictable. It doesn't really do anything new. BUT, for a semi-mainstream gay film,
it breaks all the rules.

Breeder hunks play femme gay men. There is no one with AIDS in the whole story. There are butch gay men in this movie. And no, none of the gay men has a best friend who is a single, white, straight female. Can you handle it?

The movie is entertaining. The plot is sweet. The best part of the film is the style in which it is broken up. Ala' the television show Frasier, the movie is split into sections by definitions flashed on screen to help explain the next scene. The best definition has to do with 'meanwhile'. 'Meanwhile'
being the gay term to tell your friend when an attractive male walks by.

And the movie itself is filled with 'meanwhiles.' Dean Cain
looks especially nice in this film and pulls off the character of a pretty boy with ease. Go figure. John Frasier leaves his comfortable role of an ex-cop on Frasier to be the father-figure of this group of friends and the coach of their softball team. Andrew Keegan is the newbie of the group- recently outed gay man. Finally, Kerr Smith, who has been playing a gay character on Dawson's Creek for some time, play the token gay character on a softball team of macho, testosterone-oozing fireman.

No doubt about it - "Broken Hearts Club" is a blood relative to "Steel Magnolias" complete with the wise Patriarch (Mahoney), the suffering pretty boy (Cain), the new kid in the neighborhood (Keegan), the bitchy crumudgeon (Porter), the punked druggie (Braff), and the one who brings them all together (Olyphant). In fact, the boys even compare themselves to the Steel Magnolias (and the Brat Pack from "St Elmo's Fire")a couple of times in the film. While most of the performances are forgettable (Porter and Braff do stand out) and the script falls into melodramatic stereotypes (the Druggie, the Player, the Star-Crossed Lovers), the overall result is amusing and sometimes hilarious. Watch for a cameo from Michael Bergin, the former boyfriend of Carolyn Bisette Kennedy who wrote a trashy book in 2004 detailing their sex life.

... exactly what Gay culture and lifestyle is like in any major city and is funny, unsettling honest (in the way that Gay people hated AL PACINO's racey yet truthful "Cruising" 1981 - sorry boyz, this was 1981 Gay culture), and totally believable and witty. I have to say, that ignoring the AIDS issue, the 'drag' factor (for the most part), and showing that all Gay men are not effeminate, needy or unhappy and promiscous for lack of anything else makes it the one and only film I would show my Mother ... she see my life then; and that of my friends : honestly, and not buttered up like the posh unreality of WILL & GRACE or QUEER EYE (like any masculine Gay man acts or dresses like that! : plezzze!).

Honest, believable and totally a reflection of Gay culture in the last 10 years, with out all the 'false trimmings' media has perpetrated on the rest of us normal Gay people like the ones 'living' in this film.

Some may not like it, because it is TOO honest. That quite honestly is why I really DID love it.

Think of this as the late 2000 version of "Torch Song Trilogy" : times have change a tad of late, and this reflects it honestly like that othe movie did on 1988.

Excellent.

The Broken Hearts Club is a gay softball team, made up of a group of close-knit friends. The movie follows this group as they try to find themselves...and hopefully discover happiness in the process. There's Dennis, a photographer longing for a life-companion; Kevin, newly out and still struggling to discover who he is; Cole, a egotistical actor who goes through men like Kleenex; Taylor, who is dumped by his long-time partner; Patrick, who feels he is unattractive to other men; and Benji, a club kid mixing with the wrong crowd. Watching over the group is their father-figure and coach, Jack.

The movie is an ensemble piece, and the all-star cast works well together. The pretty much all-straight group of guys even manage to convincingly play gay, although would it have killed them to cast a few honest-to-goodness gay men?

The real star of the movie is the one-liners, however. The script is full of stingingly witty dialogue. You should watch this movie for that, if nothing else. Now, if only they could have come up with a plotline as good as the quips. The story comes across as a little soap-opera like for my taste, and everyone just seems to bitch and complain their way through the whole hour and a half. And for a movie that actually has a line about how gay movies only portray stereotypes, every gay stereotype is presented.

The subtitle claims that it is "A Romantic Comedy", but this is perhaps one of the most unromantic movies I have ever seen, and while it has some hilarious one-liners, it really isn't a comedy either. It's too depressing to be a comedy. What it really is, but won't admit, is a gay Steel Magnolias--which isn't necessarily a bad thing. They just couldn't pull it off as well. The ending left me with a slightly unsettled feeling, but overall, I did enjoy it. Recommended.

Could any movie possibly address the issue of relationships (or lack there of) in the homosexual culture and better? NO! The Broken Hearts Club is hysterical and very cleverly written. It uses gay slang...showing definitions between scene changes. I just thought it was amazing! It's a must see. Prepare to laugh.