Dir. Lasse Hallstrom
Writ. Jeffrey Ashes, Kimberly Simi
Act. Heath Ledger, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Oliver Platt

This movie has such a shoddy script and the acting is so mediocre that the only reason why I can think that this movie was thrown out so fast is that Heath Ledger could assure his fans that his acting performance in Brokeback Mountain was just acting and that he is not gay. This is not a good movie and it certainly is not romantic.

Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) portrays Jackamo Casanova, a man who is a legend when it comes to conquests of the fairer sex. However, when he runs across the gorgeous Venetian Francesca Bruni, portrayed by Sienna Miller (Alfi,) and she tells his alter ego, part of the lame ass script, that she considers Casanova a pig, basically, Casanova decides to change his way and hopefully capture the heart of Francesca.

Trying to find something good about this movie is difficult. Oliver Platt (Ice Harvest) portrayed the fiancé to Francesca, Paprizzio the lard king of Genoa. Platt had a small part but made the most of it having fun with the size of his character and creating a few chuckles. Lena Olin (Hollywood Homicide) also added a few laughs as Francesca's mother Andrea. The scene between Paprizzio and Andrea, when they discover that Francesca is not going to marry Paprizzio, was probably the funniest in the movie. I also wanted to give some kudos to Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill) as The Doge. He had two small parts but he reminded me so much of his character Lord Percy Percy in the BBC sitcom Black Adder II, that I would be remiss if I did not mention it, and yes it was great.

With names like Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons (Kingdom of Heaven,) I would hardly expect them to deliver the worst two performances in the movie, well at least I wouldn't expect it from Irons, but they did. Irons I won't blame him too much because the character was written to be a complete ass, but he was so stiff, I could have sworn that there was a pole up his butt. I am assuming that he did this part for the money and not for the difficulty and probably regretted it once the production started. Ledger on the other hand seemed to go out of his way to show that all of his brilliant acting in the movie Brokeback Mountain was an anomaly and he went back to his bread and butter, which is acting with a pretty face. It seemed like every time he needed to add some actual acting to a scene to show emotion of some kind he would instead put on the "I am good looking pose" and boy did that not make since in the sword fight scene, or in any scene for that matter. Thank you Mr. Ledger to once again show that just because you have a pretty face does not mean you should be acting.

I also don't get what the hub bub is over Sienna Miller. Sure I feel bad that Jude Law banged some chick while he was engaged too her, and on principal that is f*cked up, even though you are both actors and history shows that its gonna happen. But the big problem was that I found her acting to be very eh. She was very boring in her performance and not at all inspiring as a romantic lead. I don't know if it was because she was not in a romantic place with all that has happened or what. If this film was shot before it happened then I don't know what her excuse was, but I am not impressed as of right now.

Even though I ripped on Ledger a lot, the real problem is with the script. Here is to screenwriters Jeffrey Ashes and Kimberly Simi both of whom took a story that could have been fun and interesting and made dull, boring, unromantic, and borderline insulting. Jeremy Irons character is the most obvious mistake in the script. His character Pucci, the Vatican police dude, was over the top, and apparently the stupidest man alive. His character was supposed to find the 'clues' in order to discover who the mysterious romantic writer was as well as find Casanova. Well even though the clues were so obvious that the clues might as well have been in big neon lights, it still takes the character two-thirds of the movie to figure out the painfully obvious. Irons character was written the worst, but none of them was done very well. It hurt the movie but it wasn't my biggest problem with the movie.

My biggest problem with the story is that Casanova is able to capture the heart of Francesca with a few small gestures of poetry and a vein of sincerity. I don't buy it because another part of the dizzying story is that she was the most fabled romantic story teller in Venice at the time, using a male pen name, and it would seem that her character would not fall for cheap tricks that Casanova used to get her love. Granted he did this pretending to be Paprizzio, but I don't see her character falling for it. It doesn't follow the direction the character was written. Meaning that she is to romantically smart to fall for cheap tricks, yet she does.

I can't recommend this movie even though it wasn't the worst movie ever made. I don't think its romantic, funny, or entertaining. It was poor writing and bad acting that did it in, and the directing wasn't all that either, and that is surprising considering that this movie was directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the man who directed Chocolat and The Cider House Rules. This movie had the ingredients for a good movie but it was obvious that the directions were f*cked up.

Brian - the Naked Gun