The global success and Oscar nominations (and wins) for "L.A. Confidential" ('97) put the neo-noir / crime thriller genre back on the map in terms of Hollywood big productions, featuring major stars and established directors, and several films succeeded, such as "The Black Dahlia" and "Hollywoodland" (both from '06), based on real life cases of infamous murder, some unsolved to this days."Lonely Hearts" from the very same year, tells the real life story of Raymond Martinez Fernandez (played by Jared Leto) and Martha Beck (played by Salma Hayek), the notorious "Lonely Hearts Killers", a couple that during the 40's conned several wealthy widows, by placing ads in magazines, pretending to be brother and sister. As the delusional and sociopath Martha became more possessive towards Raymond, she starts killing his fiancees, afraid that he could fell in love with one of their unsuspecting victims. Det. Elmer Robinson (John Travolta), a newly widower and his partner, Det. Charles Hilderbrandt (James Gandolfini) with the help of Det. Reilly (Scott Caan), are tasked to investigate the case...Screenwriter & documentary director, Todd Robinson, the real life grandson of Det. Elmer Robinson, made here his screen debut directing a theatrical released motion picture, which also penned the screenplay due to his emotional connection to the real life case, via his own grandfather, who told him curiosities about it since his early age.Robinson made good use of his Art Department: all the props; the sets' decoration; the hairstyles and costumes; the cars and the planes, are very faithful invoking the 40's Era and the movie looks and feels it visually. For its medium budget it's a hit.The screenplay could have been better handled, way too much screentime was given to the pair of detectives and their own private lifes, instead of focusing it more on the killers, enhancing the couple's wicked behavior and their descent into doom. The added humor beetween Gandolfini and Scott Caan's characters always picking on each other, is somewhat funny at the beginning, but ultimately, repetitive and unnecessary.The cinematography is only appropriate as so is the direction, it have a certain TV feeling to it, maybe due to the budgetary reasons, it lacks wide shots and the violence is also toned down, with the noble exception of one well staged sordid scene involving the infamous couple and Alice Krige's character.The editing obviously suffered from scenes left out in the cutting room floor, maybe to shorten the movie to be more audience friendly, but that affects the storytelling with several breaks in the narrative and an anti-climatic (not so) grand finale.John Travolta is okay in the lead role of Elmer Robinson, with a good supporting turn from the late great James Gandolfini, even if his character was seriously underdeveloped, with both sharing good on-screen chemistry, proved earlier in "Get Shorty" ('95). Scott Caan is in training mode for his future role of Danny Williams in the hit TV show, "Hawaii Five-0" and Laura Dern did her best out of a pointless character, Travolta's colleague at the Force and, secretly, his mistress. Jared Leto as Ray Fernandez is over the top hammy, too cartoon-ish for a movie like this, almost shading his ridiculous performance in "Panic Room" ('02), but Salma Hayek saves the movie in the acting department, offering a commited performance as the wicked Martha Beck, had the movie being better she could have possibly been a contender for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.In short, "Lonely Hearts" deserves, at least, a watch for completists of neo-noir, "killers on the run" and period pieces, it's a kind of hybrid beetween "Badlands" & "The Black Dahlia" and even if it isn't as good as the previous adaptation of this story to the big screen, "The Honeymoon Killers" ('70), which was more faithful to the real life case and more focused on the couple, it have Salma in one of her best performances to date and some good cinematic moments...

It is a beautiful movie, all the scenes shot very nicely. But the reason I would not recommend it is because the movie has no clear focus.The focus of this film, which was split between Buster and the couples half-and-half, should have been solely on Ray and Martha instead, who would have had the chance to make the film a lot more twisted, gruesome and action-packed..., the sort of things you would expect in a serial killer movie. The movie-rated "R" anyway-is a lot cleaner than I thought. The most gruesome scene is probably the blood gushing out of the woman who was shot by Martha in a furry while she was riding on Ray having sex. That is all. I guess if there was additional 20 mins scenes shot on the killer couples and their preys, we would have the chance to look deeper into their twisted mind and the manic killing spree. Instead, the film spent a lot of precious time on Buster. If there was a good story about him, it would have been different. But it was none. Buster's wife died at the beginning, shooting her brain out in a bathtub. The scene was a lot like the later one, where Ray's victim committing a suicide because she caught him having sex with Martha. So I naturally thought there was some connection between Buster's wife and Ray. I waited until the last minute expecting to see it revealed, but nothing. The director did not give any explanation about Buster's wife's suicide, which basically devalued the starting scene-there was nothing in the end to echo the beginning. Then it was Buster's personal life: his son, his mom, Rene... has not much to do with neither the killing nor the detection. So does anybody care except the director, who is actually a descendant of real Buster?In the end, I was puzzled why Laura Dern joined this film. She was David Lynch's favorite leading actress. She looked like an angel in Blue Velvet. She was so skillful in Inland Empire. Then she played Rene, who was not important what so ever. I mean, Laura tried to show the different aspect of this woman, her harshness in the office, her tenderness in bed with Buster, her self-respect... All the effort was wasted again, when it came to the end scene, where it had no time to explain her reunion with Buster. There should have been some good emotional scenes.Even though the shooting was done beautifully, the storyline was planned very poorly. I can't say I enjoyed watching it.

Real life murderous couple Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) and Raymond Fernandez (Jared Leto) and their murderous love affair is the main story of Todd Robinson's Lonely Hearts. Detective Elmer C. Robinson (John Travolta) his own life a tragedy in itself connects deeply with these two killer lovers as he neglected his own wife so much chasing these two that she took her own life leaving him alone to raise their son. This is the story of Robinson's crusade to bring this bonnie And Cyde type couple to justice. With the aid of his partner Det. Charles Hilderbrandt (James Gandolfini) Robinson tracks these two across the u.s reaping all of the aftermath of their crimes. I hated my comparison to Bonnie And Clyde as they only robbed banks and maybe shot the odd policeman who happened to get in their way. Beck and Fernandez were way different Fernandez who was infatuated with Beck and would even kill for her and did, and Beck who was psychotic in her returned love for robinson Quoted as saying : I was the only woman for Raymond. This movie could've fallen in the footsteps of Bonnie and clyde if it was only made a tad cooler and more believable. Hayek is awesome in the role in fact left me wanting to see her again in the future in a psychotic role. The only part of this that i didn't like is Hayek is extremely beautiful with a nice figure and the real life Marth Beck was anything but. Weighing in at 250lbs she always feared losing Fernandez to one of his cons. Which made her all the more jealous and murderous. Leto does a solid job as fernandez however i didn't really get the fear that this couple really invoked from these two actors. This movie needed a lot more spooky overtones.

Talk about flying under the radar... No doubt the strong sexual content has had something to do with this: we may be stupid and ultraviolent in this schizo country of ours, but we're also prudes. Beautifully written and directed, LONELY HEARTS gives John Travolta yet one more golden opportunity to be Golden. Likewsie, Gandolfini, whose performance goes hand-in-hand with Travolta's. Hyek does what she can with her role, but the fact that the character was changed from an overweight wallflower to... well, Selma Hyek... is a detriment. One could've (at least superficially) understood her obsession with holding on to "her man" if she'd been portrayed as the dumpy matron she was in Life: as it stands, Hyek seems shoe-horned into the part. (Kathy Bates would've been a much better choice.) Despite this, the movie resonates. It's hard to believe it wasn't more highly touted (I don't even recall seeing it advertised anywhere)...