Malevolent Femmes

The movie pairs Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt as a mother-daughter pair who live their lives by bouncing from city to city, seducing and scamming wealthy men out of small fortunes as they go along.\nWhen Page (Hewitt) decides she wants to strike out on her own, her mother, fearing Page isn't ready and being not quite ready to let go, deceives her into going after one final score -- the billion-dollar estate of tobacco magnate William Tensy, played in a rasping, coughing fit by Gene Hackman. While the scam is being set on Tensy, Page, still on a mission to prove her maturity, sets her sights and eventually falls for a bartender sitting on a prime piece of real estate (Jason Lee, in yet another sarcastic-with-a-heart-of-gold role). \nWeaver does a stellar job in her devious role, falling in and out of different characters throughout. It's impossible to tell, during the moments of sincerity, whether she's playing the audience watching as well. Page is a breakout role for Hewitt, giving her (and for large parts of the movie her cleavage) a chance to shine in a more mature, adult role. Hewitt is superb at being the sexual vixen, and "Heartbreakers" is a step in the right direction from Fox and the teen-scream roles of the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" franchise. The pairing of the two is also one of the highlights of the film, as the mother-daughter relationship alternates between caring and bickering, and both actresses generate instant rapport on screen together.\nYet another in the trend of female empowerment movies, "Heartbreakers" shows that with a little skin and seduction, a woman can manage to get just about anything she wants. Although it does not have any major sex scenes, more than enough undertones question just how close it was to sneaking under an R rating. \n"Heartbreakers" provides a lot of laughs, and the cast is solid throughout. Director David Mirkin ("Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") has struck a far more linear path in his second major feature, losing a lot of the quirkiness and odd humor that made "Romy" such a love-it-or-hate-it flick. While it won't be one of the best movies released this year, it will definitely provide enough entertainment for a Friday night date.