Row Your Boat (1999)
Jon Bon Jovi plays Jamey Meadows, a man newly released from prison who has found himself homeless on the crazy streets of New York City. Slowly, he must try to build his life up from the gutter. Resisting constant offers from his brother, played by William Forsythe (Dick Tracy, The Rock, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo) to rejoin the insidious world of crime, Meadows takes a menial job as a door to door census worker. Among his many encounters throughout this job, he meets a young Chinese immigrant who is just as unhappy in her life as he is in his. These two slowly hit it off and a relationship gradually begins to develop between them. Can Jamey Meadows learn to live in this new life, or will the temptations of his old ways drag him back to where he started?
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I found this film on a videostore some years ago,I must admit that that I rented the movie because I am a great fan of the bon jovi's music..the quality of the film it was a great surprise for me, i expected a good movie but I found an amazing film..The Jon Bon Jovi performance is brilliant, his character reminds me to the losers that Paul Newman used to play on movies like the hustler or sweet bird of youth. Bai ling plays her character with a honesty and innocence that makes impossible not to love her and feel what Jon feels about her, William Forsythe plays the character of the troublesome brother, and he is awesome on it, you never know what to feel about this character if love or hate, his performance is great, and I also like to mention Jill Henessy, she shines on the film as the girlfriend of William Forsythe character. The movie is directed by Sollace Mitchell masterfully...The scene on the park when James(Bon Jovi) teach chun(Bai ling) to curse on English is a good example about what good cinema is about..it is a small film, unpretentious,but with good intentions and full of sincerity. A story about characters of what is lacking today's cinema..a hopeless tragedy, a story of an impossible love, the kind of stories that makes cinema great.
Jon Bon Jovi is the only reason i watched this. And its only because i was positive he would have a sex scene and i wasn't gonna shy away from that action. But that never happened! Instead i had to sit through an hour and a half of actors (and singers) trying to act! This was unbelievable in every way! I hated it! No one could save this movie! Not even William Forsythe could save this film! Bai Ling?! What a joke! Nutcase! If you want junk but good junk watch "Scream for Help" at least thats laughable, this film only induces vomiting. Bon Jovi is a real jerk, i would have to say. I used to love him! But this piece of junk made me hate him! Sorry, but this movie ticks me off. What also grinds my gears is the fact that i got this for a Christmas present!
Personally, I'm a Bon Jovi fan. You could say that I'm in a way biased into liking this movie. The truth, however, is that I've never been too keen on Jon Bon Jovi's acting. In this movie however, I was strangely moved by the story and remarkably stunned by the acting. For once I can say that Jon Bon Jovi pulled it off, as well as Ling Bai, and the rest of the cast certainly didn't fall short. Honestly, I belived it. Many times in a movie regardless of how great the story is, you don't really believe the actors or the other way around. In this movie I found the story to be, although soppy at times, moving. I bought it. It's definitely a movie worth watching.
I have been a fan of Jon BonJovi's music career for 17 years. So, I know his acting is very good when I watch a movie and half way through I'm no longer thinking of "Jon do this! or Jon tell her!" it became "Jamie do this or Jamie tell her". Which I thought had to be good acting on Jon's part to make me Temporarily forget he is JON BON JOVI (only till the end of the movie). The script was very good also.