This film was recently screened on British television under its alternative title "Lethal Seduction"; my main reason for watching it was that it starred Melanie Griffith, who was regarded as a major star during her heyday n the eighties and early nineties but of whom little seems to have been heard recently. The last film I remember seeing her in was Adrian Lyne's remake of "Lolita" from 1997.
Unfortunately, "Heartless" perhaps demonstrates why Melanie's career has not been as successful in middle age as it was in her youth. To be frank, even in her heyday she was something of a one-trick pony, specialising in playing sexy blonde bimbos, or at least (as in "Working Girl", probably her best film) girls who are wrongly thought of as bimbos but who turn out to have hidden depths. Her attempts to escape from her comfort zone and to broaden her range as an actress have never struck me as very successful. The one exception was perhaps "A Stranger Among Us", where she was good as a police officer, but I was never convinced by her portrayal of a tough sci-fi heroine in "Cherry 2000" or of a tough wartime secret agent in "Shining Through".
In "Lethal Seduction" Melanie's character, Miranda Wells, is again supposed to be a tough cookie, but whereas Edith in "Cherry 2000" and Linda in "Shining Through" were both heroines, Miranda is the villain of this particular story. She is a Louisiana lawyer who has been ripping off her clients, mostly poor Mexican immigrants, charging them exorbitant sums in exchange for a promise that she will be able to procure for them a coveted Green Card, which of course never materialises. A young investigative journalist named David Lopez gets a job under a false name with Miranda's law firm, hoping to expose her shady practices. Unfortunately, Miranda finds herself attracted to the handsome young man, and they begin an affair, which puts him in a difficult position; those who have crossed Miranda in the past, including her former lovers, have tended to come to a sticky end.
Unfortunately, the role required a depth of characterisation which Melanie is quite unable to bring to it. She might have been able to portray a seductive temptress in "The Bonfire of the Vanities", but fifteen years later this art had clearly deserted her. Much of the problem lies with her voice and her seeming inability to speak in anything other than the kind of breathy, high-pitched little girl's tones which may have served her well in her youth but which sounded ridiculous on the lips of a woman in her late forties. Some actresses might have succeeded in making Miranda a memorable villainess, but Melanie gives a wooden and unconvincing performance, which means that the film as a whole is a failure. None of the other actors are particularly good, but this does not matter so much as the other characters, even David, are little more than ciphers; Miranda should have been the pivot around which the whole thing revolves.
When the film was shown in Britain, it was billed as being based on a true story, which I found difficult to credit. For all Miranda's villainy she is supposed to be a highly skilled lawyer whose brilliance in the courtroom manages to secure her own acquittal on any serious charges of wrongdoing. (Although as a lawyer myself I was less impressed by her supposedly brilliant powers of cross-examination than the scriptwriters evidently were. A jury would probably have the intelligence to realise that an investigative journalist needs to assume false identities as part of his work and that the assumption of such an identity does not necessarily mean that he is dishonest or an unreliable witness). Were this film really based upon fact, the real Miranda Wells, or the person upon whom she is supposedly based, would have a good course of action in defamation against the film-makers. 3/10
Unfortunately, "Heartless" perhaps demonstrates why Melanie's career has not been as successful in middle age as it was in her youth. To be frank, even in her heyday she was something of a one-trick pony, specialising in playing sexy blonde bimbos, or at least (as in "Working Girl", probably her best film) girls who are wrongly thought of as bimbos but who turn out to have hidden depths. Her attempts to escape from her comfort zone and to broaden her range as an actress have never struck me as very successful. The one exception was perhaps "A Stranger Among Us", where she was good as a police officer, but I was never convinced by her portrayal of a tough sci-fi heroine in "Cherry 2000" or of a tough wartime secret agent in "Shining Through".
In "Lethal Seduction" Melanie's character, Miranda Wells, is again supposed to be a tough cookie, but whereas Edith in "Cherry 2000" and Linda in "Shining Through" were both heroines, Miranda is the villain of this particular story. She is a Louisiana lawyer who has been ripping off her clients, mostly poor Mexican immigrants, charging them exorbitant sums in exchange for a promise that she will be able to procure for them a coveted Green Card, which of course never materialises. A young investigative journalist named David Lopez gets a job under a false name with Miranda's law firm, hoping to expose her shady practices. Unfortunately, Miranda finds herself attracted to the handsome young man, and they begin an affair, which puts him in a difficult position; those who have crossed Miranda in the past, including her former lovers, have tended to come to a sticky end.
Unfortunately, the role required a depth of characterisation which Melanie is quite unable to bring to it. She might have been able to portray a seductive temptress in "The Bonfire of the Vanities", but fifteen years later this art had clearly deserted her. Much of the problem lies with her voice and her seeming inability to speak in anything other than the kind of breathy, high-pitched little girl's tones which may have served her well in her youth but which sounded ridiculous on the lips of a woman in her late forties. Some actresses might have succeeded in making Miranda a memorable villainess, but Melanie gives a wooden and unconvincing performance, which means that the film as a whole is a failure. None of the other actors are particularly good, but this does not matter so much as the other characters, even David, are little more than ciphers; Miranda should have been the pivot around which the whole thing revolves.
When the film was shown in Britain, it was billed as being based on a true story, which I found difficult to credit. For all Miranda's villainy she is supposed to be a highly skilled lawyer whose brilliance in the courtroom manages to secure her own acquittal on any serious charges of wrongdoing. (Although as a lawyer myself I was less impressed by her supposedly brilliant powers of cross-examination than the scriptwriters evidently were. A jury would probably have the intelligence to realise that an investigative journalist needs to assume false identities as part of his work and that the assumption of such an identity does not necessarily mean that he is dishonest or an unreliable witness). Were this film really based upon fact, the real Miranda Wells, or the person upon whom she is supposedly based, would have a good course of action in defamation against the film-makers. 3/10
