‘Heartbreakers’: Pepare for disaster
What do you get when you take an aging alien killer (Sigourney Weaver) and a no-talent makeup princess (Jennifer Love Hewitt), put them in mini dresses and turn them loose in a two-hour romantic comedy? You get a flaming Hindenberg disaster of a movie. Weaver and Love Hewitt made for a pair whose characters were so badly played that they were completely unbelievable and very hard to watch. Their parts were well written, but neither was up to the job of portraying the deeply complex and malevolent mother-daughter pair. I found myself losing track of the story – struggling through scene after scene of wooden emotions and forced interplay between them. Their efforts might have looked better if they had not had they misfortune of being cast opposite the very talented Gene Hackman. His scenes were funny and his chain-smoking character was unique. Hackman makes acting look easy and flows naturally from role to role. I find it strange that he tends to choose such bad scripts.
The last movie I saw him in was “The Replacements” playing opposite the male counterpart of Love Hewitt – Keanu Reeves. I almost walked out of the theater when, in a silly, sexually charged turn of events, he died. I also enjoyed Ray Liotta’s performance as the latest of Weaver and Hewitt’s unfortunate victims. But solid performances by Liotta and Hackman weren’t enough to save this film.
“Heartbreakers” is a long and tedious mess that spends a little too much time leering like a construction worker at Love Hewitt’s butt and cleavage. If you want to see that sort of thing, you’re better off buying one of her many posters. It also spends way too much time trying to make Weaver look sexy, but succeeds only in making her look old by putting her in outfits and camera angles that show everything she should be trying to hide. They actually show a close-up of her stuffing her tongue into Liotta’s ear. It wasn’t pretty. So much for Hollywood lighting tricks and cutaway magic. This movie is bad, so are most of the others that are in theaters right now. If you are looking for critically acclaimed entertainment, avoid this film and go see “Spy Kids.”