That “lets screw around” look (Heartbreakers (DVD))

Member Name: zOOm

Product:	Heartbreakers (DVD)
Date:	01/09/01 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great cast, good storyline

Disadvantages: none really

Just watched this at the cinemas last night. The first thing to note is the cast: Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Gene Hackman and Ray Liotta are in the lead roles, this should already tell you something about the quality of this movie.

The storyline is the basic “get married to a guy, divorce him and get rich” story which has been done before, even by men. In a way you could compare it to “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”. The general idea of the movie is that Sigourney Weaver has once been in love, she was dumped while she was pregnant and now she just goes around marrying rich men, then divorcing them and getting a nice sum of money.

Sigourney Weaver plays Max (or any other number of names), a character that thinks she is in control of her life. She believes that a woman can make a man do anything. Sigourney Weaver is one of my favourite actors and it was a joy to see her performance in this movie lived up to the standard people have come to expect from her. Jennifer Love Hewitt played Page and was also very convincing as the “newbie” into this game and gave a good performance. However, I must say that Gene Hackman and Ray Liotta must take the character points as the victims of these two ladies. Ray Liotta plays an Italian with money and bad connections (and not much brains I might add), while Gene Hackman plays an old billionaire with emphysema.

I have to admit that the movie is more of a chick-flick then mainstream (the audience in the cinema was about 80% women), however, the performances are good and the storyline is interesting enough for everybody. So, rather than being just a female-bonding movie (e.g. Thelma & Louise), this movie is actually delivering a message and it is nice to watch.

The Spoiler Section (for those who have to know)
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Max is pretty pissed off with men ever since she was dumped by her boyfriend while pre
gnant to page. Another woman, Barbara, had taken Max in and tutored her in the ways of making money without even sleeping with the men. The scam works really easy. Page is Max’s daughter. Max and Page pick a man (a rich man that is) as a target. They pretend they don’t know each other and work from different angles. As Max gets married to the man, Page seduces him the next day. As men try and jump into Page’s underwear, Max walks in on them and there’s your reason for a divorce.

Ray Liotta is their first victim that we get to see, and even though Max has left with a lot of his money and car, he can’t forget her, so he decides to go find her.

Page on the other hand, has decided that she is old enough to try the game herself. Still, Max thinks Page will mess everything up by falling in love with her target. So, they decide to do one last job. Through some funny selection criteria, this turns out to be gene Hackman, the billionaire tobacco manufacturer, who is almost dead. Max then becomes Ulga the sophisticated Russian and tries to get married to him.

In the meantime Page has picked a target of her own and is trying to get married to him while also helping out her mum.

Things take a strange twist when Ray Liotta finally catches up with them.

I’ll leave the rest for you to find out in the movies.

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Overall, a very watchable movie. It is not a great comedy, nor is it great drama, but with a good plot and great acting, it is definitely worth watching!

Summary: