The Broken Hearts Club

The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy. I believe I just heard the universal groan of boredom with the production of yet another romantic comedy. But wait, don’t walk away, come back to this disc – it’s not your straight romantic comedy. In fact, it’s the very opposite. It’s a gay romantic comedy.

Instead of a gay couple cuddling up to watch a young, big-breasted girl and a buff, muscular jock dimwittedly play out a poorly written script based in a heterosexual world, they can now cuddle up and watch a cleverly written, humourous and touching script played out by a cast of talented and brave actors. This film offers so much more than the usual romantic comedies. It tackles current issues such as drugs, coming out, life, death, gay and lesbian couples and parenthood and the everlasting issue of friendship. Rather than writing a script such as this for teenagers, this film is aimed at the more adult audience, and saying that, primarily the gay audience, and is acted out by a group of more mature actors rather than 17-year-old wannabes in some of the American so-called ‘comedies’ produced today.

The humour is in-your-face laugh-out-loud humour and is just a real American gem. Watching big-name American actors play the roles of these gay men is hard to imagine, as they have played other roles such as Olyphant in Go but shortly into the film, their performances really do convey the homosexuality of their characters.

"I was left for another man…A trainer named Dash. I was left for a punctuation mark."

Dennis (Timothy Olyphant from Go, Scream 2, Gone In Sixty Seconds) is just one of this group of friends with whom we share their experiences of love, relationships, life and death. But the important thing that this group of men realise is that no matter what happens, they have each other to fall back on.

The video transfer, as is common with Columbia Tristar, is of an incredibly high quality. It is presented in the original theatrical aspect of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. The colours are bright and vibrant, while still maintaining realistic flesh tones. There are several dark scenes, all mastered brilliantly with excellent shadow detail and solid blacks.

There is some minor grain, but is in no way disturbing while watching the feature. There are no MPEG artefacts, but there are minor film artefacts. There is no layer change, as it is a single sided, single layered disc. The film is consistently sharp and beautiful to look at. The colours are superbly captured on the disc, and the bright, yet realistic colours are a joy to watch.

There are three tracks on this disc, English and German, both Dolby Digital 5.1 and the Audio Commentary. The language tracks are audible throughout the entire feature, and are localised to the centre speaker.

There is very little action with the Front or Rear ends of the soundstage, nor with the subwoofer. All the dialogue and sound effects are heard through the centre speaker, and the occasional music throughout the film does fill the other speakers including, to a small extent, the subwoofer. Being a dialogue driven film, the lack of action in the rear channels isn’t important, and in facts aids the audience to listen to the centre speaker, rather than be distracted by the rear sound effects.

Columbia Tristar have put together a nice batch of extras to complement the film:
Audio Commentary by writer/director Greg Berlanti and producer Mickey Liddell. This is quite an interesting listen, with the two getting along really well and giving away little secret stories from the production of the movie. There are no long silences and the two build off of each other's ideas and are able to hold the audiences attention.
7 never-before-seen deleted scenes which also have optional director and producer commentary. These scenes are interesting to watch, but it can be seen why they have been removed from the film as they slow down the pace of the film. They are presented in widescreen, but not 16x9 enhanced, and have the un-mastered look to them, similar to Go: Deluxe Collectors’ Edition.
Talent Profiles of the director and Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain and John Mahoney. They are interesting as filmographies, but don’t offer too much detail in depth about their actual lives.
Original Movie Trailer. If you have no idea what this movie is about, watch this before you watch the film as it nicely introduces the plot and the characters. Presented in fullscreen with Dolby Digital 2.0.
Bonus Movie Trailer for Futuresport, another film from Columbia Tristar starring Dean Cain. Again, in fullscreen with Dolby Digital 2.0.

The menus are static with no music, but are easy to navigate with.

The Broken Hearts Club is a must-watch film, so cuddle up with someone dear to you, whether it is male or female and relax for a good 90 minutes. The touching yet funny events that happen to this group of friends just must be seen and are nicely complemented with a superb transfer from Columbia Tristar and a decent host of extras. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you do have to hire it at least once, and then decide whether you want to own it. But if you want this reviewer’s opinion, don’t hire it – just buy it!