Lucas (Paul Dano) is a homeless young man who’s failed to kill himself and Jacques (Brian Cox) is an old man with a heart problem who runs an old Oyster Bar in the city.  These two meet in the hospital as they recuperate.  Jacques decides to take in Lucas as his student that will keep his bar running when he eventually passes.  So begins the story of The Good Heart.

This is one of those numerous films you’ve seen before.  Two unlikely characters meet with the eventual result of actually teaching each other something that they never knew about life, or something they forgot.  Lucas needs to learn that even though life is hard it still has value and Jacques is a crusty old man who needs to learn that you can’t live all your life being bitter and harsh at everything, you have to share your life with the people around you.

Jacques begins his relationship with Lucas on a completely one-way manner.  Jacques starts this friendship with the intention of using Lucas’ poor direction in life to make him his student and to enact something that Jacques wants done but Lucas has absolutely no interest in.  Along with Lucas’ lack of care for what he does at the moment makes him allow Jacques to push him into this situation.  Which is how we know from the start of the film to hate Jacques.  However, as the film moves forward and we see Jacques begin to actually take a liking to Lucas and want to see Lucas happy we in turn begin to find likeable qualities in Jacques and want him to be happy and live.

The film could’ve easily been a TV movie of the week grade tear-jerker with these common themes and an easily sappified agenda, but with the class of actors that are Paul Dano and Brian Cox they allow us to become engaged in the film.  Brian Cox is one of the best actors of enough generations that some wonder why he hasn’t died yet, but that doesn’t matter because he’s phenomenal in this role.  His hateful verve makes us all like him for being an asshole, and not many actors can do that right.  Paul Dano’s loving heart makes him the good man in this movie.  He’s the kind of person that no matter how little he has to give he will never not help another man out, which is something we – as a people – all wish we could admit to being capable of.  You may want to wonder whether it has to do with what happened to him in his lifetime that’s made him realise how important sharing is or if it’s something that’s just engrained in his persona from birth, either way it’s just a fantastic quality that unlike many other similar characters in cinema Dano is able to portray on screen without feeling artificial in any way.

The acting is what makes this movie likeable and the characters that you’ll fall in love with by the end.  I did find the ending of the film a bit transparent but I guess the fun that I had from scene to scene watching Brian Cox throw degenerates out of his bar and such entertained me enough for me recommend this film as a great rental (especially since it just hit DVD shelves).

IMDB says 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 30%

I say 6.0/10