A couple years ago I read this book called Women Who Kill and it was all about women serial killers throughout history.  Why was I reading this book? Well, it was on sale and seemed interesting.  There are a couple women whose names still jump out at me when I see them, as I remember reading their stories in that book.  One of those women is Martha Beck, who along with her boyfriend Ray Fernandez, were known as the Lonely Heart killers.  Their story was interesting to me, and when I found out they were making a movie about them I was pretty excited to see the inside story of what went on.  I forgot about the movie for awhile (it didn’t get much press, did it?) but when I saw it at my local video store I decided I’d better give it a try.  

Lonely Hearts follows two sides of the story.  Of course it follows Beck (Salma Hayek, Frida) and Fernandez (Jared Leto, Requiem for a Dream). The movie gives little background on them, and does show how they met, but not much beyond that.  It then goes on to show how they swindled lonely women into falling in love with Ray so he could steal all their money, and then kill them when they were through.  Beck poses as Ray’s sister to not arouse suspicion, although her jealousy gets in the way and makes most of the single women nervous to be around her.  The movie often switches over to the detectives hunting the killers mainly focusing on one, Elmer Robinson (John Travolta, Pulp Fiction).  Robinson has had many problems in his own life, and has stepped away from being a detective.  Now with these new killers on the loose, his interest is renewed and he becomes obsessed with finding them with the help of Charles Hilderbrandt (James Gandolfini, The Sopranos). 

I did have a couple problems with this movie.  Something was wrong with the sound in this film.  It would go from being really loud, to quiet, and back again at unexplainable moments.  At first I thought my boyfriend was messing with the volume, but when I asked him he said he wasn’t. I don’t know what the sound editor/mixer was thinking when he did this.  I also had a problem with the way the movie was focused.  I wanted more about Beck and Fernandez, not about Robinson.  The movie really only shows four murders, although they were linked to almost 20!  After watching I did find out that Robinson was the director’s (Todd Robinson) grandfather, so I guess that makes sense as to why he focused the movie the way he did.  However, I thought I was renting a movie about serial killers, not about the detectives who captured them so I felt misled. 

After getting over both of those, I can say I thought that Hayek and Leto were wonderful.  They actually made this movie seem more like a tragic love story, then a movie about murderers.  Hayek made me actually believe her reasoning for doing the things she did, and Leto showed Fernandez as confident and hesitant at the same time.  I also thought Travolta did well with Robinson, showing the many emotions he was feeling. Gandolfini on the other hand…well he was kind of annoying.  He also narrated the movie, so there was no getting away from him.  Also he had this thick East coast accent that made it hard to understand him at times (the sound mixing didn’t help this problem). 

In the end, I’d probably give this movie a C+.  I would have preferred more information in general about Beck and Fernandez and less about Robinson, but it still had its interesting moments.  I would recommend this movie just to see Hayek and Leto’s performances, which I feel were the most enjoyable parts of this movie.