HEARTBREAKERS is an MGM Pictures release, and is rated PG-13 for sex-related content including dialogue, and for language. Running time: 123 minutes. The film originally was released in theaters March 23, 2001.

INTRODUCTION
I'm not going to come straight out and say that this is a base rework of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS with reversed genders because I haven't seen the movie. But I can say that this movie stands alone on many levels. You've got to give credit to the cast for this film. The script may have dry spots and the occasional unnecessary crude humor, but director David Mirkin and his acting crew make this one of the best caper comedies to come out in a long freaking time!

STORY
New Jersey chop shop honcho Dean Cummano (Ray Liotta) has just married the woman of his dreams, Angela (Sigourney Weaver). The wedding party may have been frustrating (she doesn't mind the busboy pinching her *ss), but at least he has the night alone with her...well, nothing happens. Poor Dean gets screwed out of a night of sex after Angela sleeps on it.

Well, the next morning comes along and Dean goes to his office to find a surprise. He's got a new secretary in Wendy (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a tart in a short skirt packing major cleavage. She's also clumsy, dropping papers on the floor and teasing our hapless man into jumping on her. Maybe at the bad time: Angela walks in to find Dean and Wendy in a bad position, and immediately she files divorce.

Next thing poor Dean knows, he's lost his heart, his wife, and $300,000 in one day! To make matters worse, poor Dean doesn't know that he's been totally conned.

Angela is really Max Conners, and Wendy is really her daughter Page. Together they have made their living cheating poor rich men out of their money through marriage and settlements. They treat themselves to free dinners with the help of glass shards. They get their hotel rooms by staging wet floor pratfalls.

Now they seem to have gotten all they wanted until the I.R.S. comes along demanding their late payments. With their life savings sucked away and only 90 says left to pay, they decide to pull off one more con so that they can finally be financially secure and allow Page to be on her own. Page demands they hit Palm Springs, and before we know it, they're on their way to Florida to make their round.

Now Max assumes the identity of Ulga, a Russian woman, in order to attract our new potential victim: William B. Tensy (Gene Hackman), a tobacco tycoon with a nasty love of cigarettes, smoke, and nicotine. He's got more smoke in him than the Devil himself, but still it's better than nothing. So together Page and Max set up a roadside trap for William and Ulga to fall into.

Page finds a potential victim of her own, yet she doesn't know it until later. The man is bartender Jack Withrowe (Jason Lee), who runs a family-owned tropical tavern which sits on a hot $3 million of property. She uses her sarcasm and brattiness to fend him off, but she's met her match in the charming Jack. Before you know it, she's torn between loving him or leeching him. Things get complicated when Tensy finally kicks the bucket at proposal time, and Dean trails Max down to Palm Springs intent on getting Angela back, only to realize they've screwed him.

However, in order to pay Dean off and escape "the filthy lesbo lockdown WITH BAD LIGHTING!" they possibly face, their last resort is in Page successfully stealing Jack's money. But with true love and overprotection (Max figures she's too young to leave her, yet needs her around) in front of her, can Page go through it? Or will her mother finish the job for her?

OVERVIEW
From the acting to the direction to the script and musical score, you have the workings of a real farce running through this one. It's refreshing though in a time where comedies are defined by bodily fluids and teenaged sexual antics. The PG-13 sexual comedy sometimes hits the funnybone, and the only unwanted crude humor involves a gigantic statue with an oversized member. It's also hard to buy the ignorance of Dean Cummano when he first shows up at Palm Springs and is convinced he has found Angela. Didn't that chick in the elevator seem familiar, and why did he have to get embarrassed a SECOND TIME!! And as much as the plot required some static between Page and Jack's relationship, still there's a low amount of chemistry.

But everything else about the movie clicks in a breezy, fun feel. The cinematography by Dean Semler, the musical score is marvelous, the cast give fine comical performances, and there is a dark humor to be found in this movie. The script was written by three men (including Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, who wrote the uproarious Jim Carrey comedy LIAR LIAR), and they have plenty of wonderfully risque dialogue as well as plot twists and turns. In one scene, Page and Max come on to a bar patron, played by comedian Kevin Nealon, in a battle of seductive wits. Page offers to "grab his nuts" and then eats some peanuts in a sexy manner, and that is the best moment of sexual comedy in the whole movie.

DIRECTION
David Mirkin's previous credits were some episodes of The Simpsons and 1997's lame ROMY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION. But here, he does all that he can to provide humor and entertainment, and he succeeds. He brings some wonderful slapstick comedy from the cast, and directs this one seem like a true caper. Playing it too straight wouldn't have worked.

ACTING
The cast of this film keep this one floating. A 51-year-old Sigourney Weaver is a comedic and physical K.O. She manages to milk wit from her dialogue, provide the right phony emotions in her schemes, and her Ulga shtick provides some hearty laughs. And she also plays her motherly role with conviction and a little earnesty.

As the daughter, J. Lo Hewitt is less wooden than her previous teen film excursions. Although she still has the breasts that attract camera attention, she is funny and sexy in ample doses, delivering some wild dialogue readings and being a good sport in some of the more slapstick scenes (she even gives Liotta a bit of his own medicine), as well as providing the melodramatic edge she received from Party Of Five. This is where her on-screen potential is fully shown, and boy is she sexy.

Jason Lee does a rather fine job as the lovelorn man, although he doesn't reach the hilarious peaks as he did on the movies he did with Kevin Smith. Still, he's charming, witty, and the only moral character in the movie. You feel sorry for him at the ending, and you hope he forgives Jenny Love in the end.

I have read many critical reviews denouncing Gene Hackman for his role as Tensy, but they don't understand HIS CHARACTER IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THIS! Hackman is a veteran actor, and he has some real comedic credibility here as the phlegm-filled nicotine billionaire. He's like W.C. Fields with a coughing problem, and he gets some of the best laughs in this movie.

However, Ray Liotta is the one true standout here. I don't truly know what it is that makes him such an edgy screen presence and scene-stealing performer, but he really rocks this one as Dean. He gets the best moments of the film (where he is in the hotel proposing to Angela, when he finally confronts the dastardly duo, and when he vents to Max about her actions) and he just lends his style to them. His physical expressions are also enough to send a shock down your spine. He hasn't been like this since his breakout role in 1986's SOMETHING WILD.

The supporting cast includes many familiar faces, and all of whom are just as good as the lead roles. Look out for cameo-mistress Carrie Fisher as Angela's settlement attorney, Kevin Nealon in his scene at the bar, Jeffrey Jones as the hotel manager, Nora Dunn as Tensy's housekeeper Miss Madness, comedienne Sarah Silverman in a small role as Jack's friend Linda, musician Shawn Colvin as a wedding minister, director David Mirkin as Jack's lawyer, and last but not least Anne Bancroft as IRS attorney Gloria Vogal (who is also not what she seems to be).

MUSIC
The musical score by John Debney is very much in the key of classic Mancini farce, and composer-du-jour Danny Elfman does the theme. Other than that, it's throwaway light pop music. Some Shawn Colvin, The Red Elvises and even a Beck number. Alison Krauss remakes The Foundations' "Baby, Now That I've Found You" to sleepy effect. The musical highlight of the film is Sigourney Weaver's Ulga karaoke of a certain Beatles classic about the Soviet Union.

SEX/NUDITY
A PG-13 picture with nudity is rare. It's all about how much cleavage the two stars show, how short the dresses are, and the fact that ERIN BROKOVICH just may be the film's biggest influence. Although Weaver is very attractive in this one, Hewitt gets the lions share of the revealing costumes though, and we see much of her assets (kind of like the I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER bikini shot repeated ad-infinum). And for the ladies who don't revel in the female teasing, you get Hackman in his boxers and Liotta in his underwear.

VIOLENCE/GORE
There's a joke with a dead body and Liotta pulls a gun on some fishes, but other than that it's non-violent heartbreaking.

CONCLUSION
Ray Liotta kicks butt. Gene Hackman makes me laugh. Sigourney Weaver is one hell of an actress. Jennifer Love Hewitt gives me a non-guilty boner. Jason Lee is a sympathetic nice guy. This movie is funny. What a cast! HEARTBREAKERS is sexy, sinister and well-executed.

DVD DETAILS
The film is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen formatted for 16:9 TV sets. The picture quality has no grain, fine color quality and flesh tones (I stare at Love's cleavage too much in this one). The Dolby 5.1 surround sound is crisp and audible, and is also in optional English, French and Spanish soundtracks and subtitles. Chapter selections are available, in 26 scenes.

MGM Home Entertainment give this the special edition treatment, and here's the menu:

-"THE MAKING OF HEARTBREAKERS" is around 20 minutes long, including on-set comments from the director, cast, and several other crew members about the movie's conception and production.

-"LAFFS AND GAFFS" is 10 minutes and is a brief featurette with comedic bloopers, alternate takes and talks on the funnier scenes in the movie. Patricia Belcher is a hoot as the hotel housekeeper who takes advantage of Ray Liotta in his most humiliating moment, and you see some of the other funny takes of that scene.

-There are two full-length audio commentaries. One is David Mirkin going solo, explaining a lot of the production and technical aspects, as well as his thoughts on the actors. It's a little fun, but not as fun as track 2. On that one, Mirkin is joined by Sigourney and Jennifer, and all three of them make jokes, offer bubbly humor and talk it up on some scenes (their comments during chapter 2 are great).

-19 deleted scenes pan out 22 minutes of running time. The DVD box makes a clerical error in pointing out the number of scenes. David Mirkin's commentary is optional, yet there's no "play all" option for these extras. Some of the scenes include Hewitt and Weaver exercising in the hotel gym (which includes the shot of Hewitt falling off the treadmill which made the trailers), Ulga and Tensy in a scrabble game, the complete "Back In The U.S.S.R." scene, a scene where Hewitt distracts a bell boy by lifting her shirt, and a rough-cut scene of Hewitt and Weaver arguing in their convertible so that they accidentally lose their money.

-The film's original theatrical trailer and a bonus preview of the DVD release of THE PRINCESS BRIDE.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older