Lonely Hearts

written and directed by Todd Robinson

starring John Travolta, Jared Leto, James Gandolfini and Salma Hayek

John Travolta as a detective with a hardened but hurting heart. Not an original character, granted, but one which is played very well in this instance and around which a quite watchable film is set. There are no spoilers possible for this storyline. The viewer is guided throughout by snippets of narrative, elucidation of key events, character details and the odd horror or two so as to be held for the near hour and three quarters over which the film plays out.

Based on an apparently true story, there is an interesting paradox in the way that the main characters, Travolta's detective Elmer Robinson, Hayek's smouldering femme fatal Martha Beck and Jared Leto's Ray Fernandez (the latter two being the criminal characters) express their sometimes disturbing depths of pain. With a stealy and selfish determination, Beck drives Fernandez in a series of flirtatious liaisons designed for theiving but each ending in gruesome murder. Scenes of corpses, particularly that of a naked one in a bloodied-water filled bath are presented effectively, haunting sufficiently to catch up the viewer in Robinson's own crusade to bring the criminals to justice. The ending sequence, incorporating a dual execution by electric chair and Robinson's final escape from his own emotional torture, neatly conclude the film.

Edge of your seat stuff - no. Complex enough to hold the attention - certainly. The power of this storyline is in the tension of each character as they are brought more fully into view through the course of the film. You'll have to deduce from that as my concluding statement whether or not this is one to watch.