Lonely Hearts (2006)

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Don't be fooled - the cast could not save this film from the slow moving train-wreck this predictable and clunky abomination is. You will be left asking 'Why?' There was a shopping list of 'themes' and genre enforcing clichés that violently assaulted the viewer throughout the entirety of this awful tripe, including but not limited to: 1: Salvation in police work; 2: Femme-fatale; 3: Fraught father-son relationship with new woman on scene; 4: My jurisdiction's bigger than yours; 5: Good cop, bad cop; 6: Fiesty latina; 7: BJ behind the wheel of car; 8: Avant-garde murder-sex scene (really Selma?); 9: Men too tough to talk about feelings and turning to therapeutic carpentry; 10: Cops and donuts joke; 11: Historically 'appropriate' sexism; 12: Cop makes grisly find. Sinks to knees in pain; 13: 'This is a suicide.' 'No, it's a murder!'; 14: Blood dripping through floorboards; 15: 'We've just missed them.... Coffee's still warm.'; 16: Punchy one-liner before getting the chair.John Travolta is old. He had a stuntman. There were no stunts. Make-up will not fool the discerning viewer.This film is unwatchable. Drink responsibly.

Lonely Hearts (2006)A steady, interesting, colorful crime movie packed with both great old tropes from the film noir days and lots of familiar tricks. Amazingly, it's based on a true story from post-war America that goes way way way beyond the slimmed up version here. The result is good, yes, but never mesmerizing, never a complete surprise, and never up to the potential of the either the source material or the talented cast. The very dependence of well known formulas for a kind of classic look and feel is what holds it back, because we know those formulas so well. The one aspect to the movie that is forcibly modern is the one that feels so forced it's almost pandering to a contemporary audience--lots of open swearing and sexual references in a manner not really "right" for a 1951 America.Several lead actors are terrific. Salma Hayek, once she arrives, is an edgy bad girl, a woman with little moral code and a comfort level with blood and manipulation that makes an old school femme fatale look like schoolroom stuff. Her bad boy companion, Jared Leto, at first comes off as a Robert Downey Jr. wannabe, but he gradually hardens up his edges and by the end is pretty believable as a cocksure murderous idiot. The two cops, John Travolta and James Gandolfini, are a great pair, the one restrained and more in tune with the criminals, the other the sidekick with a good heart. (They might be modeled after, say, Glenn Ford and William Bendix, as two 1951 actors who could have pulled off the same roles with more conviction.)The filming, the editing, the pace, the sets, the old cars, the interior and exterior location shoots, all of the nuts and bolts are in place here for a good movie. (Of these, the photography is the most routine, partly because of how it's directed, as in the last scene when the cops swarm the house--it could have been really exciting.) But overall it's the script--the script, not the story--that holds it all back. The parallel plots of the two criminals in their love affair crime spree and the cops on their trail is clear and fine, but unrevealing. The events happen, and we sort of know how it will end. And it does (not to give away anything!). If you want the true facts, go to the really long but readable account at trutv.com and type in the Lonely Hearts. As a quick and hopefully helpful movie comparison, you can look at recent films like "Road to Perdition" or "Shutter Island" and see how a period piece film can brim with originality and better filming. A movie comes closer to this kind of familiar quality, based on older classic Hollywood models, is "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp, though that one had some really beautiful moments in the photography. And what about that title? It is derived from the male killer's original tactic for getting money, which is given a comic treatment at the beginning of the movie--he writes to lonely women, gets them to fall in love with him, and steals their assets.A final revealing note: the director is the grandson of the cop who led the original investigation into the crimes. That means he's really well placed emotionally, but as a director he's really incomplete. It's amazing, in fact, that he got the budget and talent he did with such a short track record. Opportunity squandered? Partially. Give it a chance.

I loved the actor, the atmosphere and especially the music. While the story itself wasn't great, it was told greatly. - The timing was perfect. All in all a great watching experience was created. If only I would have found the murdering couple more convincing. They have been drawn way too likable and "nice". It was simply unbelievable that those two sympathetic people could commit those crimes. (That goes especially for Jared Leto. Salma was able to convince me to be a beast most of the time.)The other problem I had, was the story around the detective Travolta. I didn't find it very interesting, and I believe it barely fit to the main theme of the movie.After checking IMDb I realized that this movie was based on a real story. Knowing that, I believe that the movie should have been more realistic, and more shocking. You didn't see their last and worst crime in the movie, you only heard the officers talking about it. Killing a child is one of the worst horrors you can commit. And it simply didn't seem shocking in this movie. There was no "shock effect". I don't ever want to see a child being killed on the television screen. That is not what I am asking for. - What they should have done, is: Show how they start to kill the child, and then turn back to John Travolta. That should have created the shock effect. I am not exactly a fan of movies telling real life crimes. I will never ever watch "an American Crime" again. - But I will always remember that movie with a shiver. I'll probably forget about Lonely Hearts.

I personally have a severe weakness for horror/thriller movies that are based on real-life serial killer cases, mostly because the truth is even viler and more disturbing than the imagination of any given Hollywood scriptwriter. I've seen numerous film adaptations of real murder cases, but one of the most jaw-dropping and fascinating stories for me undoubtedly remains Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck's the Lonely Heart killings. Their modus operandi was simple but frighteningly disturbing. During only a very short period of time – the second half of the 1940's – Beck and Fernandez are believed to have killed over twenty women; all of them aged spinsters and single mothers who were unfortunate enough to place an add in the lonely hearts section of a newspaper. With his looks and natural charms Raymond could easily seduce the poor women and, with Martha posing his sister, they robbed and killed them. The ironic aspect about the case is that they themselves met and fell in love through an add in the paper. These are strictly the facts of the case, but the problem with "Lonely Hearts" is that it's a Hollywood production and thus naturally tends to deviate from the genuineness in favor to appeal to wider audiences. The film introduces an impressive list of cast members, including John Travolta, Salma Hayek and James Gandolfini, and writer/director Todd Robinson is the actual grandson of police inspector Robinson who was in charge of the Lonely Hearts investigation. He processes a lot of rather irrelevant sub plots into the script, like the remorse over his own wife's suicide and the personal issues with his teenage son and colleague love interest, which aren't directly connected to the murder investigation. Therefore, if you're interested in a truly faithful adaptation of the same case, I strongly recommend Leonard Kastle's film "The Honeymoon Killers". That movie also features a lot more detailed accuracy. For example, the real Martha Beck was a woman struggling with obesity and a lack of confidence, whereas in this version she's portrayed by natural beauty Salma Hayek who spontaneously gives oral sex to a highway patrolman to evade a speeding ticket. Now, the occasional lack of accuracy and diversion doesn't mean that "Lonely Hearts" is a bad film, of course. Far from it, in fact, as I can honestly admit I was glued to the TV-screen throughout the entire film. The biggest trump is that Todd Robinson re-creates an admirably moody and depressing film-noir atmosphere, complete with typical narration and an astonishing cinematography. The costumes and scenery (including old cars and farmhouses), as well as the color schemes and music, catapult you straight back to the 1940's. In spite the fact that "Lonely Hearts" is full of famous Hollywood faces, the film is also surprisingly shockingly violent and occasionally even quite nihilistic in tone. The murders of Jeanette Long and Delphine Downing are graphically depicted and definitely not suitable for sensitive viewers. Last but not least the acting performances are praiseworthy. Especially Salma Hayek impresses with her portrayal of the sickly jealous and psychopathic Martha Beck and Jared Leto isn't bad neither, as the emotionless and sly Raymond Fernandez.