Lonely Hearts

Unlike earlier versions of the Beck/Fernandez story, Robinson's film is divided evenly between the cops and the criminals, with Beck and Fernandez sinking ever deeper into their lethal amour fou and Robinson grimly hauling himself out of the psychological muck. And what it does best is convey the sheer wantonness of the crimes: The murder sequences, like those in Kastle's film, are brief, sudden and incredibly brutal. But overall, the film is undermined by miscasting, an infelicitous blend of fact and fiction and, especially, the tin-eared hardboiled voice-over. Scott Caan is terrific in the minor role of a pugnacious detective who lives to needle Robinson, all pint-sized swagger and snickers. But 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. The trouble with her Martha Beck isn't just that the real Beck weighed over 200 pounds (and abandoned her two children for Fernandez, a detail that speaks volumes but was omitted from this version); it's that she's a fantasy who has no place in such a sad, sordid story. --Maitland McDonagh