You know what the best part of Straight From The Heart is for me?

It’s that I’m almost 100% positive that’s the director David S. Cass Sr. With this movie, I will have seen 15 of his Hallmark movies. It’s nice to finally put a face with the name. The reason being that they refer to him as Mr. Cass in the movie.

Correction: According to a commenter identifying themselves as David S. Cass Sr. himself, that is most certainly NOT a picture of him.

Anyways, he’s asking a photographer named Jordan Donovan (Teri Polo) if she likes garbage, not because her photos are garbage, but because she likes taking pictures of garbage. Work isn’t going well for her. Now we are introduced to a cowboy named Tyler Ross (Andrew McCarthy). Friends and family of these two decide to play matchmaker and with an ad in Country Connections, Jordan is in now in the country with Tyler.

Honestly, there is less to talk about here than most. Sure there are details. He lost a wife and child. There is an issue with wild horses and his property that has ties back to his father in law from the now dead wife. Jordan was proposed to, sort of, before she came to the country. By sort of, I mean he asked her to move in with him, but not marriage.

None of that is really too important. What you have here is the cowboy who is damaged. A photographer who is a little lost both in her work and personal life. Then you have this little matchmaking scheme that gets them to spend some time together. They go through a series of different experiences together developing a friendship.

This is one of those really early Hallmark movies so it looks good. You can tell more money went into this then the stuff you see nowadays on the channel. That also means it’s one of those that censors itself. Twice, Jordan says the word “butt” and it falls silent on the word. It’s still in the captions though.

The acting is good too. In fact, I would be recommending this as one of the best one’s I have seen if it didn’t have one problem that really bothers me. I don’t really see any reason that these two people should end up together as lovers. It doesn’t make sense. It makes perfect sense that they should end up as close friends, but asking me to buy them as lovers feels as genuine as if she were a mail order bride and they just lived happily ever after. I see these two people as having helped to heal each other, not fell in love with each other. That part felt forced to me. Especially the ending where it almost felt like he shows up just out of obligation to the script.

If that part doesn’t bother you, then this is worth seeing. It certainly is one of the best looking Hallmark movies I’ve seen.