Heartbreakers

Heartbreakers is a 2001 romantic comedy film directed by David Mirkin and starring Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Gene Hackman, and Jason Lee. The plot follows Max and Paige Conners (Weaver and Hewitt respectively), a pair of mother and daughter con women. Max marries rich men and then quickly sets them up to cheat on her with Paige and then claims most of their money in a divorce settlement. When the movie starts Paige wants to break away from her mother and start conning on her own but the IRS has just seized all their money so the two decide to pull off one big con on Palm Beach. Max poses as a Russian woman to snag the billionaire William B Tensey (Hackman) in hopes of paying off the IRS and setting Paige up for conning on her own. Meanwhile Liotta plays Dean, the last man the women conned, who wants a second chance with Max and stumbles across their con.


 * Abusive Parent: Max isn't exactly Joan Crawford but...
 * All for Nothing: We spend most of the movie believing that Max and Paige are doing the con just to pay off the IRS but.
 * All Men Are Perverts: Deconstructed beautifully. Max and Paige make their money off this trope, doing their very best to con all men using their sex appeal. Paige's mentality is "we can't make a scumbag do anything a scumbag wouldn't do". But then when it appears even nice guy Jack . And Dean gives Max a speech telling her that although he cheated, he is genuinely sorry because he lost her and wants to try again.
 * All There in the Script: Max's name is never mentioned once in the whole movie.
 * Arbitrarily-Large Bank Account
 * As Long as It Sounds Foreign: "Olga's" accent is not even close to being authentic but it just needs to sound convincing enough to fool Tensey. Ditto for Paige's "English" accent as Allison.
 * Bilingual Backfire: Tensey takes "Olga" to a Russian restaurant where she knows only one word of Russian and is then called upon to sing a traditional Russian song.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Max and Paige switch between all three colours in their various identities; both are brunette as themselves, Max is redhead as "Olga" and blonde as "Angela" while Paige is redhead as "Wendy" and blonde as "Allison".
 * Caught with Your Pants Down: Dean at the start although it's more caught with a woman stuck on your pants.
 * Chained to a Bed: Dean
 * Chekhov's Gag: The statue of the man with the erection.
 * Christmas Cake: Paige subtly implies Max is becoming this as her record for getting men to marry her is three months but the recent con with Dean took four months. It's also likely that Max hasn't actually had sex since she got pregnant with Paige.
 * Death as Comedy
 * Disappeared Dad: Paige's dad pulled a "conceive and leave"
 * Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Averted as Max is.
 * Expository Hairstyle Change: Max and Paige have different hairstyles for their different identities.
 * Fan Service: Remains Jennifer Love Hewitt's hottest movie.
 * Fake Nationality: Max pretends to be Russian and Paige pretends to be English.
 * Foot Focus: Max when she's trying to seduce a man in a bar.
 * Fourth Date Marriage: Paige and Jack.
 * Gag Penis: Dean is implied to be VERY well endowed.
 * Get Rich Quick Scheme: The con at Palm Beach.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Max adopts a few pet words in Russian as "Olga" such as "pipishka" (you know what she's talking about).
 * The Ghost: Barbara, Max's mentor who taught her the con..
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Paige
 * Karma Houdini Warranty: Max
 * Likes Older Women: A few of Max's husbands.
 * Meaningful Name: Max and Paige's last name is Conners.
 * Mrs. Robinson
 * Noodle Implements: The "Trogden Triangle" requires a trumpet and a talking parrot.
 * Out with a Bang
 * Pay Evil Unto Evil: The end implies
 * Rich People
 * Sassy Black Woman: One of the hotel maids.
 * Shaking Her Hair Loose: When Paige/Wendy is revealed to be Max's daughter she pulls off her red wig and shakes her natural brown hair loose.
 * She's Got Legs: Both of them.
 * Stacy's Mom: Max tries to invoke this with Jack.
 * Straw Feminist: Max believes all men are scumbags who can't commit to one woman..
 * There Are No Therapists: When Dean discovers what the two are up to he says, "do you have any idea how much therapy you people need!"
 * Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Max we're looking at you
 * Wedding Day: Two of them though implied there has been more.
 * Wig, Dress, Accent: Max as "Olga" and Paige as "Allison".