Heartbreakers
Created | Updated Jul 11, 2003
Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt star as
Max and Page, a mother and daughter con team, in the
recently released movie, 'Heartbreakers'. Now that that
is over with, let me just say Y E S it is
another one of those movies... you know, the
sort that thinks (quite rightly, perhaps) that men
think between their legs, and are willing to shill out
six pounds to watch two women tramp across the screen
wearing next to nothing.
There seem to be a million and one movies about the life of a con artist, most notably 'The Grifters', starring Angelica Housten
and John Cusack, and 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels',
starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. While 'The
Grifters' focused on a mother and son team, willing to
do anything and everything for the con, 'Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels' takes a comedic edge to the theme. If you
find movies about the con interesting then you should
choose either of the two movies, or any one of the
million others, over Heartbreakers. Again, this movie
is not so much about the con as it is about two
scantily, and tightly, clad women who go through the
motions of life merely as a means to an end: money.
That said, it is a fantastically comical movie when
you throw out the pretense of plot and
motive!
Max goes from town to town seducing
men, eventually getting them to propose, and, after
the marriage, catching them in bed with another woman,
who happens to be Page. Once they are caught with
their pants down, the men are usually so distraught
that they end up annulling the marriage, leaving Max
with half of their estate. After their last con, Page
confronts Max with the idea of her branching out on
her own; Max dutifully agrees, and the two go to the
bank to split the money. Ready to close their
account, the two find the IRS has frozen their account
due to tax evasion, and the two are forced to do one
more con. The con leads Max and Page to Palm Beach
and an aging tobacco millionaire, William B. Tensy
(played by an off-kilt Gene Hackman). Going under
cover as Ulga Yevanova, an exotic, high-society
Russian, Max works her way into Tensy's heart, whilst
Page goes off on her own, trying to woo a potential
husband but ending up falling in love with a
bartender.
The movie is hilarious from
beginning to end; watching Sigourney and Jennifer
shamelessly exploit themselves and participate in
truly horrible acts, doing so with a carefree manner,
it makes the film a truly effective comedy simply from
the 'Oh my god, I can't believe they did that'
perspective. If you are lucky enough to own a dvd
player, rent or buy the dvd! You certainly won't be
disappointed as it contains over twenty minutes of
deleted scenes, including an extended sequence of Ulga
singing 'Back in the U.S.S.R', as well as a deleted
Scrabble sequence between Ulga and William (he spells
out nicotine, she spells out suicide, he spells out
tobacco, etc.) that is gut wrenching. Perhaps best of
all is a deleted sequence in the movie when Max, in a
moment of anguish, cries
'Are there no honest people left in this world?'
That alone is worth the
watch.
