JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT IN DON JON

year: 2013 cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza, Julianne Moore rating: ***

In most movies, a slick, guiltless womanizer is usually the second banana. From SWINGERS to SIDEWAYS, the main character we can relate to is the gentle, passive guy who learns from the gigolo how to (or how not to) play the ladies… So be prepared for the dude who gets all the “action" to tell the whole story…

After scoring plenty in a noisy strobing nightclub, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s titular lady killer finds the one who puts the rest to shame… Although Jon, called DON JON since he’s kingpin in the bedroom, has something he likes better than random sex or this new hopeful conquest, and that’s porn.

Quickly edited scenes of various internet porn not only puts the audience into Jon’s busy brain, but provides director Levitt a creative way to show how we view things: No matter what you're into, thanks to high speed Internet, information is fast, flashy and perpetually omnipresent. But what happens when The Don’s not online?

A Tony Danza comeback... Why didn't Quentin Tarantino think of that? Did he see GOING APE?

A game-changing relationship with the girl Jon considers a “dime” (perfect 10) is his only complication. Scarlett Johansson’s curvaceous Barbara tries her best to change Jon’s habits, and breaks ground where no other ladies have. First by meeting his family, which includes macho Italian Tony Danza, and then giving Jon forceful advice on how to live: from shopping to cleaning house, she has all the answers. But it turns out Barbara’s merely a distraction to an underlying “issue” that must be resolved…

The initially platonic relationship with night school older lady Ester (Julianne Moore) attempts to change Jon’s outlook for the good… and that’s subjective. The film’s sexually charged, potentially limitless, surprisingly insightful frolic – captured in vivid, frantic motion by a promising first time director – takes backseat to an attempted bittersweet romance that winds up crashing the party: Oh well, it was fun while it lasted…