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David Mirkin's Heartbreakers (2001) is a humble, old-fashioned comedy
that centers on two con-women who specialize in ripping off naive single men.
Angela marries Dean but the night of the wedding falls asleep. Dean is seduced
by the sexy and young Jane and can't resist. Angela finds them on the floor
and files for divorce. With the money... the two women leave together: Jane
is Angela's daughter and the whole thing was a well-camouflaged trap.
But a nasty surprise awaits them at the bank: the IRS wants a cut of all
the money they have been accumulating with their scams. In fact, they owe the
IRS quite a bit of money. The IRS incident is what convinces Jane to help her
mother one more time, but on condition that this time they rip off a very
rich man, one last big deal. Angela finds an old, unattractive, chain-smoking
gentleman and sets to seduce him (impersonating a Russian noble woman).
In the meantime, Jane is trying to seduce a young rich and dumb man but instead
falls in love with a bartender that she initially loathed.
After a number of elaborated schemes, the old man is ready to fall for Angela's
good looks, but he dies of a fatal coughing attack.
Just at that moment Dean has decided to come and beg Angela for forgiveness.
He finds her with the dead body and also finds out that Jane is her daughter,
and therefore that he was fooled by the duo. Determined to get his money back,
he follows Angela to the bank: it turns out that the IRS agent was also a
scam, one planned by Angela to cheat her daughter of her half of the money,
so the money is actually at the bank. But this time Angela is the victim: the
fake IRS agent has stolen the money. So they are really broke.
They need a back-up plan and the bartender (who turned out to be the owner of
the bar and loaded) comes handy. Jane is forced to seduce him, marry him and
then let Angela create the circumstances for filing a divorce. That the
bartender does not want to cheat on his wife is a minor detail: Angela drugs
him. Jane finds them in bed and thinks that he really betrayed her. He does
not even try to explain and let her have all the money she wants.
But Angela eventually repents and Jane runs back to her prince, while Angela
and Dean swear eternal honesty.
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