Review of Don Jon (2013) by Gavin M — 20 Aug 2014

Joseph Gordon-Levitte keeps on impressing. Joseph Gordon-Levitte is without a doubt one of the top young Hollywood actors working right now. He has ranked up a pretty good resume so far over the past few years.

I mean who can forget his breakout role in the rotating fighting scene in the hotel in the dream sequence of Christopher Nolan's "Inception," or his unbelievable portrayal of a young Bruce Willis in the sci-fi thriller "Looper.

" He even retrained with Christopher Nolan in the third installment to his Batman trilogy "The Dark Knight Rises," playing a straight edge cop. But in "Don Jon" he gives definitely one of his most impressive performances to date playing a typical New Jersey Guido who loves working out, keeping his house clean, loves chasing after girls, hanging out with the guys and is addicted to porn.

His character even tends bar at night even though we never really see him bartend in the movie. But it all changes when his eyes lock into Scarlette Johansson at a club one night when he is with his boys and the man literally falls in love.

Johansson gives one of her most impressive performances to date playing a typical Jersey girl who is taken by Gordon-Levitte's character when they go out on a date and it's even more interesting when he brings her to his parents house played by Tony Danza who is unbelievably awesome as JGL's Italian father and Glenne Headly who plays the typical Italian mother.

Danza's character is so taken by Johansson when he meets her he can't believe how incredibly hot she is, telling Gordon-Levitte about how perfect her tits are and what a knockout she is in a typical Italian manner, it's a great scene, it's the scene that made me realize how great Danza is in the role.

Even when he meets Julianne Moore who plays the older woman who attends night class with JGL and they start to get friendly with each other and even smoke a joint with each other which eventually leads them to having sex and JGL begins falling for her over Johansson who starts to become demanding in the film towards the end of their relationship telling JGL that a grown man shouldn't be cleaning his own home, but what's wrong with that? A woman should be impressed of the fact that a man takes care of his own home because let's face it, not a lot of guys do.

But he still is addicted to porn, even he has sex with other girls and even when he bang Johansson it's still not enough for him and that when he admits that nothing does it for him the way porn does.

That's when he usually waits till the woman falls asleep, sneaks into the living room with his lab top and then begins his addiction to watching porn and then ends up rubbing one out into a tissue and dumping it into the trash can.

One of the best parts of the movie is when Johansson catches him watching porn and he quickly closes his lab top denying that he was even watching porn and Johansson is flipping out that she had just caught him in the act, it's a good scene.

But it's through Julianne Moore who is still a looker at her age, that she begins to teach JGL that the reason he doesn't get enough satisfaction sleeping with women the way he does with porn is because he doesn't fully commit himself to the woman he is with while having sex.

It's then also he begins to realize that he has an addiction to porn and tries to stop but it's not easy at first, until he fully realized he needs to stop and just stops like that on a dime and fully commits to Julianne Moore, which I thought was interesting how it ended with the two of them staying together and being intimate partners.

But like I said before JGL keeps on impressing, he fully got down the accent, the mannerisms, everything you expect from a Jersey Guido. He's definitely one to watch no doubt and is definitely like I said before one of the best young actors working right now.

I'm sure a lot of people are going to go into this film thinking this a typical Jersey shore movie, but it's not, it's far from it, but as a first time director, JGL does an excellent job executing his vision of a Jersey Guido, who only a few things he cares about in his life.

His body. His pad. His ride. His family. His church. His boys. His girls. His porn.