SummaryLonely Hearts is a vivid retelling of the real life murder spree of Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez (America's notorious "Lonely Hearts Killers") and its connection to the tragic story of Detective Elmer C. Robinson who helped capture the killers but lost his wife in the process. (Millennium Films)
Directed By:Todd Robinson
Written By:Todd Robinson
Lonely Hearts
Metascore
Mixed or Average
60
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
60
57% Positive
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
43% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
80
Todd Robinson constructs a riveting thriller.
70
As fictional characters in a movie that is fetishistic in its attention to period detail, Mr. Leto and Ms. Hayek work well together as an unsavory couple two rungs down the social ladder from Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity."
67
Travolta gives a hangdog performance as the world-weary cop obsessed with rooting out the killers. Hayek and Leto share a few tart black comic moments as the film spirals into a bloodbath.
63
While Travolta and Gandolfini have the beefy, closed-off look of post-WWII era cops, they never FEEL: They look like actors playing dress up. Leto overcomes his delicate good looks to embody Fernandez's feral, faintly exotic charm, but Hayek is a standard-issue femme fatale, damaged on the inside but flawless on the surface.
60
A handsome and well-acted film -- if you like that bitten-off, half-Hemingway style -- but also a grim, emotionally strangled one with a strong sadistic current, no genuinely likable characters and almost no humor.
50
Good as she is, the effortlessly magnetic Hayek just can't sell the role of a pathetic soul whose deep insecurities turn her into a sociopath. And if she has too much charisma, Leto, as the smooth Lothario, simply doesn't have enough.
50
Todd Robinson, grandson of the real-life Elmer, never fully commits to the heartlessness of the genre as Arthur Penn did in "Bonnie and Clyde."
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
54% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
23% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
23% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Jan 12, 2020
5
The problem with this film is that it can't decide if it's a detective flick, a caper flick, or a Lifetime TV soap opera character study. Travolta plays a police detective haunted by his wife's suicide and what that's all about I don't know because as I'm writing this I haven't finished the film because I don't think I can endure it. Why the film pretends to be set on Long Island (filmed in Florida) I can't say and I'm not inclined to spend the time to find out. The main point of interest, for me, is discovering that the real-life Fernandez and Beck were executed in Sing-Sing by the same guy who executed accused spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. His name was Joe Francel and he was an electrician when not serving as NY's official executioner from 1939 to 1953. He's said to have executed 137 people at $150 a pop, which is pretty good money for the forties. You can look him up. As to "Lonely Hearts," by comparison, I make no particular recommendation. P.S.: Another reviewer correctly points out that the real-life Beck was no glamorous Hollywood actress and in fact was rather overweight, as opposed to the screen version of Beck, played by Selma Hayek.
Production Company:
- Millennium Films
- Emmett/Furla Oasis Films
- Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH & Co. KG III
- Holly Wiersma Productions
- Lonely Hearts Productions
- Nu Image Entertainment GmbH
Release Date:Apr 13, 2007
Duration:1 h 48 m
Rating:R
Tagline:Love can be murder.
Awards
San Sebastián International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
