Bobby Roth has written and directed a gem of a film and a Los Angeles classic. I totally lived this in the early '80's. I was the Nick Mancuso character; the guy who worked in business, dressed well and had a father who was dying of cancer. My artistic friend Richard was in television and knew all the hip people as well as the right clubs, bars and restaurants to hang out in. In other words, a little like the artist played by Peter Coyote.
"Heartbreakers" is the real deal. D.P. Michael Ballhaus gets the 80's look down to a tee. The woman in this film are all beautiful and are perfectly cast. The music in the film is also totally awesome, to use a hip term from that time. Tangerine Dream and Pat Benatar round out the great soundtrack. I just can't say enough about how good this film is. I love how it captures the precise moment just before AIDS would work itself into the main stream of American culture. We see perfectly how Eli and Blue are perplexed and somewhat scared by Terry Ray and his gay boys at the art gallery. They are still free to sleep around as much they want as AIDS is still a gay disease. But that's about to change very soon.
I was able to enjoy this one on a wide screen, as one day I was playing hooky from work. My expectations were lowered as I was expecting a teenage titillation comedy, because there was a totally misleading and desperate ad campaign misrepresenting this film in the hope of getting more butts in the seats. I was very impressed at how mature and piercing the screenplay was. As I said before, this is both an '80's and a Los Angeles classic.
Sadly, I think this film is getting harder and harder to see, as the VHS tapes are wearing out (my copy is slowly dying) and I don't believe "Heartbreakers" is available on DVD yet. It's certainly time to fix that.
"Heartbreakers" is the real deal. D.P. Michael Ballhaus gets the 80's look down to a tee. The woman in this film are all beautiful and are perfectly cast. The music in the film is also totally awesome, to use a hip term from that time. Tangerine Dream and Pat Benatar round out the great soundtrack. I just can't say enough about how good this film is. I love how it captures the precise moment just before AIDS would work itself into the main stream of American culture. We see perfectly how Eli and Blue are perplexed and somewhat scared by Terry Ray and his gay boys at the art gallery. They are still free to sleep around as much they want as AIDS is still a gay disease. But that's about to change very soon.
I was able to enjoy this one on a wide screen, as one day I was playing hooky from work. My expectations were lowered as I was expecting a teenage titillation comedy, because there was a totally misleading and desperate ad campaign misrepresenting this film in the hope of getting more butts in the seats. I was very impressed at how mature and piercing the screenplay was. As I said before, this is both an '80's and a Los Angeles classic.
Sadly, I think this film is getting harder and harder to see, as the VHS tapes are wearing out (my copy is slowly dying) and I don't believe "Heartbreakers" is available on DVD yet. It's certainly time to fix that.