I bought ROW YOUR BOAT on DVD at my local Just-A-Buck dollar store almost a year ago and it sat on the shelf unplayed till this past weekend. I had picked it up mainly for my wife, who still carries the torch from her teenage crush on Jon Bon Jovi. I had never seen Jon in an acting role before, but I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised by his abilities. (However, I have always HATED his fluff-rock band, and I suppose I always will!) Jon stars here as an ex-con who's determined to walk the straight and narrow path after his parole. When we first meet "Jamie" (Jon), he's spending his nights at flophouse hotels or on the streets of Manhattan and trying to avoid the temptation to go back to work for his brother (a genuinely slimy William Forsythe), a small time hoodlum who was the cause of Jon's imprisonment in the first place. Jamie takes a low paying job as an "enumerator" for the US Census Division, which leads to many funny scenes as he trots around bad New York neighborhoods trying to count the various occupants. His census job brings him into contact with a lovely but unhappy Chinese woman (Bai Ling), who is basically a "trophy wife" for a much older Chinese businessman. He offers to give her English lessons and they begin a wobbly but romantic relationship, while his brother's "business" begins to tempt him back into the fold. I'm not going to proclaim this is a great movie but I did enjoy its combination of romantic comedy and crime drama, and the ending is not the one that I'd expected/hoped for. Add in some cool shot-on-location scenes from the gritty side of New York City and you have a cool little film that was definitely worth the dollar I paid for it, which is not something I can say about most of the other "Dollar Store DVDs" in my collection.

Personally, I'm a Bon Jovi fan. You could say that I'm in a way biased into liking this movie. The truth, however, is that I've never been too keen on Jon Bon Jovi's acting. In this movie however, I was strangely moved by the story and remarkably stunned by the acting. For once I can say that Jon Bon Jovi pulled it off, as well as Ling Bai, and the rest of the cast certainly didn't fall short. Honestly, I belived it. Many times in a movie regardless of how great the story is, you don't really believe the actors or the other way around. In this movie I found the story to be, although soppy at times, moving. I bought it. It's definitely a movie worth watching.

"Row Your Boat" is an underrated Jon Bon Jovi's movie. It won't change the world or run for the Oscars, but it's a nice and sweet piece of entertainment.Although is hard to believe that the rockstar Jon Bon Jovi could be a homeless man coming out of the jail, when he starts the romance we all believe that there's the guy who wrote "Always", "Never Say Goodbye" and "I'll be There For You". Jon is always better when he does the loser characters (like "Destination Anywhere" or "Pay It Forward"). I think people should give a chance to this one.

I am a big fan of Bon Jovi the group and of Jon's. This is the 4th of Jon Bon Jovi's movies that I have bought. I thoroughly enjoyed the others but this is really the first one that I stopped thinking of him as Jon and was rooting for "Jamey". From watching his first movies I can see an enormous growth in his acting ability. He was excellent as were the rest of the cast. Jamey was funny, sweet, considerate and loving. From the first of the movie Jamey is trying to go down the straight and narrow to get his life back on track after taking the fall for his brother. But the world and his brother seem in cahoots to bring him down. I will watch this many times as it was well worth the money!