Ralph's Movie Reviews: HEARTBREAKER

Thursday, September 16, 2010

HEARTBREAKER

Romantic comedy
Orignal title: L'arnacœur
In French with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Romain Duris: Alex Lippi, professional romantic mercenary
Julie Ferrier: his sister Mélanie
François Damiens: Mélanie’s husband Marc
Vanessa Paradis: 30-year-old wine expert Juliette Van Der Becq
Jacques Franz: her rich father
Héléna Noguerra: Juliette’s best friend Sophie
Andrew Lincoln: Juliette’s investment-banker fiancé Jonathan Alcott

REVIEW
What sets this one apart from others of this sort is that both elements are very much in evidence: there’s romance (lots and lots of it) and some funny bits. Not many romantic comedies can match that.

But it goes a bit too far allowing Sophie’s slutty nature to predominate for several scenes. Frankly it lacks credibility as I cannot see Juliette, the “perfect lady”, hanging out for a minute with someone like that. To my mind it takes the whole thing down a notch.

CLASSIFICATION

for brief sexuality and language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
In an attempted carjacking the driver’s side window gets smashed but just minutes later Alex and Juliette drive off and it’s perfectly fine, not a scratch on it.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.