the swirling sick feeling hit me just a few minutes into " heartbreakers .
" ray liotta 's character was making out with his secretary when his new wife knocked on the door of his office .
while scrambling to collect himself , he frantically shouted to her , " just wait a sex ?
er , i mean sec !
" i was struck by a wave of revulsion , thinking , " geez , did n't lines like
that die when ' three 's company ' was canceled ?
" over the next few minutes , as the barely double entendres and lingering cleavage shots grew more numerous , i realized that the mindset behind " heartbreakers " predated " three 's company .
"
suddenly , i had an out - of - body experience as my internal way - back machine swept me to the mid-1960s .
all across america , the counter - culture was growing like wildfire , but there was scant evidence of it on tv .
while young people were challenging traditional values on the streets , frustrated teenagers like me were stuck at home , sulking while our parents enjoyed the latest bob hope special .
women in skimpy bathing suits would prance onscreen while hope made growling noises and leered at their breasts .
on another channel , dean martin made wisecracks about " booze and broads " and peter lawford , decked out in love beads and a nehru jacket , purred suggestive one - liners as he ogled the go - go dancers .
the adults laughed and laughed .
" heartbreakers " reeks of that stagnant mentality , from its lingering shots of jennifer love hewitt 's vah - vah - voom breasts to its leaden screenplay , which paints women as haughty schemers and men as drooling buffoons too sex - obsessed to realize they are being manipulated .
in addition to liotta and hewitt , the cast includes sigourney weaver , gene hackman , jason lee , nora dunn and anne bancroft .
i ca n't imagine what drew performers of their caliber to this project .
perhaps they thought it was a parody of the sniggering sex comedies of the ' 60s .
if so , they were sadly mistaken .
the story revolves around a mother - daughter con - team .
it opens with the marriage of max ( weaver ) to dean ( liotta ) , a new jersey chop shop operator .
having withheld sex until the honeymoon , max pretends to pass out on their wedding night .
the next morning , she feigns illness , sending a very horny dean off to the office , where he ends up in the arms of his new secretary .
just as the two are about to get overtly physical , max bursts into the room and catches them .
the " horrified " bride dissolves the union , garnering a healthy cash settlement along the way .
of course , the secretary was really her daughter page ( hewitt ) and
the whole thing was a set - up .
the women move on , but an irs agent ( bancroft ) catches up with them and demands a huge amount of money to cover unpaid taxes .
in desperate need of funds , max and page head for palm beach to replay the scam .
their mark this time is william b .
tensy ( hackman , in hideous make - up ) , a decrepit tobacco tycoon obsessed with the joys of smoking .
max starts to put the game into action , but page is so repelled by the old man ( and angry with her mom ) that she slips off to enact her own score , targeting jack , a laid back young beach bar owner who is worth a fortune .
complications arise when page realizes that good - natured jack is stirring actual emotions in her steely little heart .
as if that was n't enough , dean reappears on the scene with revenge on his mind .
the attempt to weld a romance onto a caper comedy served only to remind me of the infinitely superior " a fish called wanda .
"
i wo n't bother to compare the two .
suffice to say that everything done right in " wanda " is done wrong here .
" heartbreakers " is soulless , inept and , at 123 minutes , at least a half - hour too long .
sigourney weaver and jennifer love hewitt throw themselves into their parts , but have nowhere to go with the metallic characters .
gene hackman is utterly wasted in a one - note , one - joke part
that has him doing nothing but smoking , coughing and waxing rhapsodic about smoking and sex .
poor jason lee is stuck in
the ingenue role and the normally charismatic actor comes off as merely bland .
ray liotta manages to squeeze a tiny bit of humanity and humor into his walking clich ? , but only a bit .
the low point in the film has weaver employing a russian accent bad enough to make boris and natasha wince , while doing half - assed slapstick with a broken off penis from a statue .
bear in mind , though , that this is merely the worst segment of a movie made up of nothing but low points .
if you remember bob hope specials with fondness , this might be your cup of tea .
as for me , i 'm going to watch " a fish called wanda " now and try to forget i ever saw " heartbreakers .
"
Output: N