Ecology Fan
Let me start this review by saying that I love Julianne Moore, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansen. As such, I was really looking forward to it, and perhaps that expectation contributed to my ultimate disappointment.Everyone looks gorgeous in this film (special praise for Tony Danza, a 65-year-old with a much younger man's physique: well done!), but apart from that, there isn't much to recommend it. If it's a comedy, we must have missed all the jokes because it just wasn't funny. The "late '80s North Jersey guido" stereotypes are all trotted out in quick succession, whereafter viewers are beaten over the head with them. The accents! The muscle cars! The tight clothing! The product-heavy hairstyles! The gratuitous shouting and swearing! The mother who endures it all for the unconditional love of her son! If there were an adaptation for the stage, I bet we'd have been sprayed with Drakkar Noir to complete the feeling.Other points: * The always delightful Julianne Moore is under-used here. * The exploration of a character's addiction to porn is at best a side show. This is not a film with really much depth at all.
apioneer
I wanted to see Joseph Gorden- Levitt's movie Don Jon, because I saw him in 'Mysterious Skin' directed by Gregg Araki. Joseph was good when he was young. He really knew how to act and he would put emotions in the character which would make you cry. But I was totally disappointed at Joseph in this character in Don Jon. He forgot how to act. He thought that he could really play a New Yorker and Italian plus Joseph, comedy is really hard. You are not a comedy actor. Why would you choose to write and direct and then you wanted to be a lead actor in it too. There was no real plot in the film and actors were just superficial and there was nothing natural about them. There was vulgar sex like every 10 minutes as if that was the way to keep audience engaged. Scarlett Johansson was struggling to produce New Yorker accent and I don't really care about her acting anyways. I don't know who wanted to put money into this film. Ryan Kavanaugh kept putting money into bad films that's why he is bankrupt.
Bryan Kluger
In addition to starring, Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes his debut as a writer/director with 'Don Jon'. At its core, the movie shows a simple man's transition from an unlikable sex-obsessed douche-bag into a somewhat friendlier human being capable of having meaningful relationships. The film is quite fun, but also often repetitive.Jon (Levitt) is a young man in his early 30s who bar-tends at a trendy night club in New Jersey. When he isn't working, he and his greased-back hair work out at the gym, meticulously clean his apartment, watch football with his two friends, and try to have sex with a different girl (who must always rank above an 8 on his hotness scale of 1-10) every day. As he narrates throughout the course of the film, he's very successful at this.Oh yes, there's one more thing. Jon is completely obsessed with watching porn, an activity he does more than once a day. He tells us that porn is and always will be better than the real thing. As he lists his many reasons for this, his speech is interspersed with actual porn footage. Jon has a bad temper too, and doesn't make friends other than his lifetime buds, who just want to see what hot girl he'll score with next.Then, Barbara (Scarlett Johannson) walks into the club, and of course she's a dynamite knockout from top to bottom. But then she speaks, and an unbelievable Jersey accent comes out and ruins everything – except to Jon, of course.Jon puts his best moves on Barbara, but she doesn't budge, at least for a while. She wants to be wined and dined over the course of a month or so first, and Jon is hell- bent on this conquest. However, he's never experienced love, and thinks that Barbara is the one, even though she manipulates him into doing things for her in return for sex. Everything comes to a head when she finds out about his porn obsession, which hasn't slowed down a bit since their exclusive dating. Barbara is so horrified by this that she screams, runs and never comes back.Jon attends school to become something more than a bartender. There, he meets Esther (Julianne Moore), an older widow who's a free spirit and takes a liking to him. She even figures out a way to get through to him about his selfish ways. She gives him a vintage '70s porn to watch, so that he can see the error of his ways and maybe change his thoughts on women and himself.Some of the best scenes in the movie take place at Jon's parent's house, during the weekly family dinners. His dad (Tony Danza) is not above cursing at everyone at the dinner table, and must have the football game on at all times, even when people are talking. Danza shines in this role and garners quite a few laughs.This is a good first film for Levitt, and he can only improve from here. He's brilliant as Jon shows his struggle between his two personalities. As a director, Levitt's camera-work won't win any awards. He tells the story straight, yet repeats himself often. On the other hand, the payoff is good enough in the end to make you glad that you watched the film.
