Purple Hearts : The Loyal, fronted by charismatic frontwoman Cassie Salazar, is raggedy-rocking their way through a cover of “Sweet Caroline” in a coastal California military base bar that is quite similar to the Top Gun bar (Carson).
The boss then pulls the plug because everyone in the band works there and there are drinks to be served, but none are given to Luke (Galitzine). He only wants a Coke, please.
Being a left-leaning feminist, Cassie doesn’t like it when there is some sexism. Luke tries to diffuse the situation, but his ideological leanings toward the right and his attraction to her make it difficult. They engage in biting banter. This seems to be the start of a beautiful collection of clichés!
To get to her insulin, Cassie goes out to her car and brushes away the Doordash equipment from her fourth job and the envelopes that read “FINAL NOTICE.” She’s nearly done.
When she visits the pharmacy, she is given the standard runaround about how her insurance won’t cover the medication she needs to stay alive but that she can pay $500 for it instead, a situation that is completely out of character for those FINAL NOTICE envelopes.
A sweaty moron in a truck tries to run down Luke when he is out for a run. Due to his drug use and subsequent alienation from his Marine veteran father, Luke is owed $15,000 by the man. Luke enlisted to become sober and is now on his way to Iraq.
Cassie and Luke decide to be married after finding themselves in each other’s company once more at another event. You got it correctly. Married. Because the government of our nation provides relatively generous advantages to decent, happy heterosexuals, like extra money to help with debt payments and health insurance to help with insulin costs.
Just milliseconds before he is deployed, these two desperate individuals pinky-swear over the bargain and promise to put up with one another.
They and we worry that the hoax will be exposed and they’ll both wind up in jail since military officials can use all of their interpersonal synergism skills to identify when there isn’t True Love. There is an awkward “you may kiss the bride” moment.
After putting together their flimsy house of cards, Luke departs for abroad while enrolling in the sleazebaggano’s payment plan, and Cassie acquires all the diabetes management equipment she needs. They have to text, email, and video chat as part of the arrangement to keep the ruse alive.
Unexpectedly, they get to know one another and may even begin to care about one another’s sentiments as Luke’s missions get riskier. Cassie is inspired to write songs in response to the circumstance, and before you know it, The Loyal are popular and playing in packed venues. So she is succeeding while he is bleeding, and the already complex issue becomes, um, even more complex.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This movie literally takes the military character from Dear John and the Miley Cyrus character from The Last Song and mashes up their respective narratives. Nicholas Sparks-isms are prevalent throughout the film.
Watchable Performance: I enjoy Carson in this role as the lead. She exudes just enough sass and authenticity to keep us, if not completely immersed in the film, then at least from turning it off.
Cassie responds to Luke’s jab, saying, “Sorry, but this is fascinating to me. Do you own a doctorate in mansplaining?
A mediocre-at-best stylized nookie sequence, Sex, and Skin.
The pressure is on the main couple to produce enough of an emo-hormonal chemical reaction to persuade us to care because Purple Hearts is mainly based on a shaky premise that we could poke holes in with a sideways glance. However, I must state.
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Alas. Galitzine is a bit of a stiff fish, and Carson’s singing isn’t impassioned enough to warrant the overabundance of musical performances that put the movie’s momentum to a complete halt. HE seems to mouth breathe. She has a thin, pinched Britney voice when she sings. Every minute of this movie’s bloated two hours, I at least felt something.
Maybe that was too direct. Stretches of Purple Hearts provide compelling melodrama, but none of it contains surprise plot twists or sincere humor.
While the film does occasionally bring out a lovely golden retriever to brighten the scene, it mostly relies on elaborately staged moments of vulnerability between the two leads, one of which is implied by the title of the film and the other by Cassie’s medical condition.
You can refer to her as Mrs. Liberal-Hoo-rah notwithstanding the ideological gap between them, which wishy-washes its way to a mushy submission to nebulous military grounds. In clichéd movies, genuine love is the only thing that can unite people on opposite sides of a vast divide.
