Lonely Hearts (2006)

Sheesh.  At this point, I've seen so many shitty John Travolta movies- I brace myself when I'm about to watch the ones I may have a passing interest in. Don't get me wrong; he's not incapable of turning in good work and he has charisma out the ying yang but maybe it's the parts he picks. Or maybe he thinks playing the sullen ham family man is the way to address any role... It is rare for him to be in anything that goes straight to video though like Lonely Hearts did. I mean I was curious but I don't even remember putting this on the ol' LoveFilm list and when i saw it was coming I was a bit let down but I thought I'd give it a shot since I knew Jim Gandolfini was it as was Salma Hayek.
But I'm happy to announce that this is unfortunately one of those poor movies that has slipped into the cracks and was unfortunately buried but is quite watchable and entertaining. Jared Leto and Hayek play a pair of murderous con artists who prey on lonely women. Travolta and Gandolfini play the cops on their case.  Of the four, Hayek wins but her character's nutso, so her part of the script is a bit more chest and Leto is pretty good as this nefarious duplicitous shallow crim. Travolta and Gandolfini do varying degrees of Vince Vega and Tony Soprano, characters they've been caning since the 90's. I mean like Gandolfini but it's telling when you think you're watching a great actor but he keeps repeating the same schtick in every other thing.
The real surprise here though is the writer and director, Todd Robinson. A man who certainly paid his eyes in Hollywood writing and doing other work, I'm guessing he got the directing high based on the strength of the script he turned in not to mention the talent involved. It's a good strong script based on strong dialogue and good characters; I've given a gilb synopsis of the story but it's really a good example of this sort of thing. All thecharacters are well drawn and the story's not predictable. But Robinson really succeeds in aquitting himself directing too considering he's filming 'period'. I can't imagine filming something in period first time out of the gate-so many possible disasters!
But unfortunately in this case, the spoils do not go to the victory and since, Robinson hasn't his name to much else since Lonely Hearts but he'll never be out of work, so he has that and when this comes on a 11pm on BBC One on a Wednesday...  do the right thing and give this some of the attention it missed. Lonely Hearts deserves some love.

I watched Lonely Hearts ( 2006) on DVD,  via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Covert:Black Ops (2010)...