Heartbreakers (2001) starring Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee directed by David Mirkin Movie Review

Heartbreakers (2001)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Sigourney Weaver in Heartbreakers (2001)

Flirty Rotten Scoundrels

Max (Sigourney Weaver) and her daughter Paige (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are a couple of con artists and when they're not pulling off small hustles to get free petrol and dinner they have a bigger scam going. Max seduces a wealthy man, marries him and then shortly after Paige seduces him so that Max can clean him out in the divorce court. Whilst Paige has had enough they find they have the IRS after them for unpaid taxes and so they agree to one more con, the con of all cons and that is to target billionaire William Tensy (Gene Hackman) in Palm Beach, Florida. The trouble is that whilst Max sets about seducing Tensy, Paige finds herself bored and scouting smaller targets which is how she breaks the rule by falling for bartender Jack Withrowe (Jason Lee).

I honestly can't name more than 5 comedies which break the 2 hour barrier and manage to be entertaining from start to finish, in fact I can't name many more which break the hour forty five mark and achieve complete entertainment. Sadly "Heartbreakers" is not one to make the list as at just over two hours it is a good 30 minutes too long and fills its running time with the same thing over and over again. And like that relative who shows up unannounced after a while the conversation runs dry and you wonder when they are going to leave or will you end up talking about the weather.

Jason Lee and Jennifer Love Hewitt in Heartbreakers (2001)

Now in fairness "Heartbreakers" possesses a nice idea for a comedy with this mother daughter con act combined with some mother daughter conflict as Paige has had enough of Max bossing her around, it sort of reminds me of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels". The thing is that after an opening which sees Max and Paige pulling their con on a guy called Dean, a scene stealing performance from Ray Liotta, it ends up going over the same thing again so we watch them pull off another con after another whilst arguing in between. It is okay for a while but then after a while you want more than just more hustle or at least more than what you can guess is obviously going on.

Now here is a problem as the cast of "Heartbreakers" is very good from the double act of Weaver and Hewitt through to that scene stealing performance of Liotta and nice guy performance of Jason Lee. But with the repetitiveness of watching Max and Paige pulling cons what we get again and again is Weaver and Hewitt's cleavage on show as they wear a series of figure revealing outfits and whilst they both are beautiful, sexy women it actually becomes tiresome.

What this all boils down to is that "Heartbreakers" could have been a really good comedy which played to the actor's strengths but sadly in the end ends up feeling drawn out and in need of cutting down by a good 30 minutes.


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