Friday, January 14, 2011

Heartbreaker (FRENCH) DVD

(L’arnacoeur)
DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: French Farce about Romeo for Hire Released on DVD

French heiress Juliette Van Der Becq (Vanessa Paradis) is engaged to be married in ten days to Jonathan Alcott (Andrew Lincoln), a proper British gent who’s rich in his own right. The two are madly in love with each other, and the only thing wrong this picture is that the bride-to-be’s father (Jacques Frantz) is unhappy about his daughter’s choice of a spouse.
So, he has decided to retain the services of Alex (Romain Duris), a dashing Don Juan who specializes in ruining relationships of women involved with losers, simply by turning on his irresistible powers of seduction. Strategically assisted by a mood-setting, impossible mission team comprised of his sister, Melanie (Julie Ferrier), and his brother-in-law, Marc (Francois Damiens), he’s never left a customer unsatisfied in ten years of engaging in monkey business.
Despite his morally questionable line of work, Alex still has a code of honor he abides by, and that includes not sleeping with or falling in love with any of his targets. He also usually won’t even take a job unless the female is already having second thoughts, but he lets Juliette’s case be an exception to this strict rule only because he is presently heavily indebted to a mobster impatient for his money.
After accepting the assignment Alex travels from France to a luxurious, seaside resort on Monaco, where the object of his affection is busy putting last-minute touches on her impending wedding. To make it easy to ingratiate himself with Juliette, he poses as a bodyguard hired by her dad.
However, it’s not long before Alex discovers that he’s met his match in more ways than one, as Juliette figures out that he’s been put up to the charade by her father. Worse, she falls for him anyway, and against his better judgment, Alex finds himself developing deep feelings for her, too.
Will Juliette break up with Jonathan before they tie the knot? And how will overprotective Mr. Van Der Becq take the news that his hired hunk now wants to date daddy’s little girl? Then there’s the question of how the jilted fiancĂ© will react to being left at the altar?
These are the pressing questions which come to the fore in Heartbreaker, a lighthearted sitcom with enough slapstick and sheer silliness to generate laughs galore for the duration.

Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
In French, English, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin with subtitles.
Running time: 105 Minutes
Studio: MPI Home Video

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