Romantic crime comedy Heartbreakers may run a bit on the long side but the con-artist film has its moments nearly a quarter-century later.

It’s funny. I’ve been meaning to rewatch Enemy of the State for the longest time now. But when I decided to pay tribute with a late-night viewing of a Gene Hackman movie on Thursday night, I went with Heartbreakers instead. To be fair, I’ve been in the mood for comedies or escapism for quite a bit and Heartbreakers did the job.

Max Connors (Sigourney Weaver) and her daughter, Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt), are a pair of mother-daughter con artists. After conning auto-body shop owner Dean Cumanno (Ray Liotta) out of $300K and a Mercedes, Page has plans to go solo. Max doesn’t think she’s ready to go out on her own. A trip to the bank results in learning their savings has been wiped out and they owe the IRS a substantial amount of money in back taxes. This results in a trip down to Palm Beach for one last con. After staking out the scene, they decide to target widower and tobacco tycoon William B. Tensy (Gene Hackman).

After conning their way into a luxurious hotel suite, Page tries running a con of her own. After going to a bar to initially target Dr. Arnold Davis (Michael Hitchcock), it goes as wrong as it possibly could. Page fake chokes before really choking and the doctor completely ignores her. The bartender, Jack (Jason Lee), eventually comes to her rescue. She lies about her identity before later learning that he’s worth $3 million. What Page didn’t expect to happen is falling in love with Jack. Max–busy seducing Tensy as Ulga–follows Page one night and then tells her to break things off with Jack. Page doesn’t seem happy about doing this.

Things go disastrously wrong for Max. First, Tensy dies on her just after he proposes, leaving her and Page to move the body. If this isn’t bad enough, Dean has followed Max down to Palm Beach in hopes of getting her back. He’s in for a shock when he learns that Max and Page are mother and daughter. Not surprisingly, he is extremely pissed and wants his money back. At which point, all of them are in for a shock upon learning that Barbara (Anne Bancroft) cleaned out Max’s bank accounts. This is the point in Heartbreakers where Page suggests conning Jack. One gets the sense that she doesn’t want to hurt him.

Heartbreakers ends on something of a cliffhanger, suggesting that Dean is now working with Max in order to get money back from Barbara. Back in Palm Beach, Page looks to make up with Jack. After all, she had developed genuine feelings for him and learned what her mother did to him.

There were things I noticed this time around in watching Heartbreakers were things that I didn’t even notice back in 2001 or subsequent rewatches–my brother had bought the film on DVD if I recalled. For one, Anne Bancroft plays Max’s mentor in what would end up being her final role. The actress died in 2005. Two, Carrie Fisher has a small cameo as Max’s attorney during her divorce. Being a Star Wars fan, you’d have thought I would have noticed this back in 2001. Funny enough, I didn’t even realize it was Fisher while watching last night until seeing her name in the credits! Three, I had completely forgotten that Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis worked for Jack.

As I said before, the film runs a bit on the long side. It really didn’t need to be over two hours long. It could have done everything it needed to do in 105 minutes or less. At the end of the day, the laughs are what truly matter. If I’m not laughing, it wouldn’t be doing its job. I’m not going to get into what has and hasn’t aged well in Heartbreakers seeing as how it was made back in 2001 and I’m watching it through that lens. Not factoring what has and hasn’t aged well, there are plenty of laughs to be had here, especially on the physical comedy side of things.

Gene Hackman understood the assignment in Heartbreakers. Whether he’s starring in a drama or comedy, the man always shows up for work. Even when he takes on a role because of a money job–as he did in The Poseidon Adventure–the man still puts on a hell of a show. Most of what he has to do here is cough up a storm as an aging tycoon widow obsessed with his own product. And yet, he steals almost every scene in which we see him. May his memory be a blessing.

DIRECTOR: David Mirkin
SCREENWRITERS: Robert Dunn and Paul Guay & Stephen Mazur
CAST: Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, Jeffrey Jones, Nora Dunn, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Ricky Jay, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Hitchcock, and Gene Hackman

MGM released Heartbreakers in theaters on March 23, 2001. Grade: 4/5

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