A Love Song for Bobby Long

for each detail. for New Orleans who becomes part of the stories about it. for John Travolta who reminds his real artistic virtues. for story, heavy, cool, fascinating, slow, dramatic and familiar, for Gabriel Macht behind "Suits" and for Scarlett Johansson and her science to escape by the temptation of clichés. one of old fashion about South, with strong flavor and the time different by the rest of world, a poem about friendship and about solitude and about the escaping from yourself.

This may be one of john travolta's finest acting roles. The critic reviews were lukewarm, and it seems the movie wasn't released in many theaters for people to see, which is a shame. This is a gem of a film. It takes place in new orleans and follows the lives of three unlikely roommates. Two drunken men living in a dilapidated house of a dead woman, and the woman's estranged only daughter who comes to claim her inheritance-a third of the house. With no place to go, the three stay together under the same roof and a friendship somehow grows, like grass through a sidewalk crack. Well acted, and well directed, there are times the pace of the film seems to slacken but it doesn't take away from the story being told. All in all, one of my favorite films no one saw this year.

New Orleans is a major character in this film. Not the French Quarter as we usually see but the slums that gave us the music and character of this unique place in all the world. You have to ask yourself why and how did a first time unknown director get two major stars to make this budget film in three weeks in August of 2004. The answer is script, script and script. A good story seems harder to find than $100 million in LA. We have remakes of remakes of TV shows and comic books. The story is very good; the look of the film is great and Travolta and Johansson bring their gifts to the lead roles. Deb Unger is particularly fetching and dignified. The real New Orleans that is probably gone forever after the Katrina disaster is reason enough to cherish this film and add it to your permanent collection. Also loved the way JT used that old Gibson LG-1 as a prop and actually played it and sang a few tunes!

Just a nice little movie. I really did not dislike any of it. It was just nice. I thought the characters were nice and most importantly the movie did not make judgements on any of them, even though two of the main characters were alchoholics. The acting was good and I am surprised nobody got at least an Oscar nod.

I also liked the locale and the music. It is funny because when this movie was out, I had never heard of it. I don't think it got the publicity that normal John travolta movies get. I also thought it was sad and eerie seeing New Orleans locales before Hurricane Katrina. Anyway, good movie.

Reviews for "A Love Song for Bobby Long" are falling in the range from terrible to fantastic. My vote is closer to the fantastic end. The movie gets off to a slow start, but starts to work about a quarter into the film. The story unfolds at a slow pace; fitting for its locale. The character development for the three main characters (Travolta, Johansson and Macht) is well-woven into the story. Each character is flawed and through a series of events overcomes their problem. That to me is interesting movie-making. No storyline or subplot was left hanging at the end. Maybe I was tired, but I didn't see the end of the movie coming in the first five minutes as one comment stated. This movie is worth your time.