Mercy

I have a problem with movies about men who women cannot resist.

Mercy is a romantic drama with some good qualities -- among them earnestness and strong performances -- but not enough to completely overcome the strain of its clichs.

Scott Caan delivers a complex portrait of a womanizing bully with a cream-puff heart.

Scott Caan, of all people, playing a writer of romantic novels?

With Glenn offscreen for huge sections of the film, Mercy devolves into yet another navel-gazing drama about a glib cad redeemed by the love of a good woman.

Caan can't seem to play up his strengths. He's a raw talent who needs an editor for his scripts and a strong hand behind the camera guiding him. Mercy gives our guy neither.

Frustratingly uneven...

There's a frayed romanticism to Caan's script that belies his swaggering air of machismo; this is a man who understands the price of love, even if Johnny can't, or more probably, won't.

Caan's decision to cast real-life pals such as Jane Fonda's son Garity, McDermott and John Boyd (as a blabbering lovesick friend)--not to mention his father--makes sense, but the decision to leave out the heart of his narrative doesn't.