Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Max (Sigourney Weaver) form a dynamic mother-daughter con team in Heartbreakers.

The set-up could be straight out of Jerry Springer: mother and daughter end up fooling around with the same guy, only the guy doesn’t know that the two are related. And he certainly doesn’t know that they’ve planned the whole thing in order to acquire a nice, hefty divorce settlement. Men who can’t wait to get to the altar and the women who fleece them. Heartbreakers.

  Mother-daughter team Max (Sigourney Weaver) and Page Conners (Jennifer Love Hewitt) make a living out of just such a con. Unsuspecting target No. 1: Jersey chop-shop owner Dean Cummano (Ray Liotta). The wedding ring is just barely past the knuckle when Mom gives the signal, and Page, posing as a secretary, turns on the charm (which mostly consists of bending over in a skimpy outfit). It’s only the day after the wedding, but a dizzy Dean throws caution to the wind and gets caught in the act by his outraged bride. Three hundred grand later, Dean is heartbroken, and Max and Page are on their way out of town.

  Springer subplot: rebellious daughter Page wants to get away from controlling mother and start her own felonious life. Mom pleads for partnership on one last big job. When daughter acquiesces, the duo heads for Palm Beach, Fla., land of milk and honey.

  Enter unsuspecting target No. 2: tobacco baron William Tensy (Gene Hackman), a disgustingly wealthy chain-smoker – both disgusting and wealthy – who is sure to be good for a few million if the girls can just get past the hacking cough and personal smog cloud. While Max sets up shop, Page gets impatient, wanders off and falls into a love-hate thing (mostly love) with a stargazing bartender (Jason Lee). As if matters aren’t complicated enough, ex-husband/ex-boss Dean isn’t completely out of the picture yet.

  Most of the swindles and punchlines in the Heartbreakers script, concocted by Robert Dunn and Liar, Liar’s Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, aren’t particularly clever: pratfalls, sleight of hand, tight dresses and exotic accents seem to get Max and Page just about everything they want. For whatever reason, Weaver decides to be Russian while conning Hackman, leading to the inevitable awkward moment when she encounters a "countryman" she can’t understand at a local restaurant. At one point, Hewitt plays the game, too, dragging out the English accent she no doubt picked up for that travesty of an Audrey Hepburn bio-pic. Fake a fall, get a free hotel room. Broken glass on plate equals free meal. All of which can still make you smile, even if it is pretty much so far so blah.

  Still, it is fun to see Weaver play something she does exceptionally well (mischievous malevolence) and to see Hewitt play something she hasn’t done before (tart with a heart – and a mouth to match). Heartbreakers makes it seem possible after all for Hewitt to shake the saccharine Sarah she played on Party of Five and the ill-fated Time of Your Life. Weaver is nearly manic in her with-this-sting-I-thee-wed maneuvers; she’s so good at playing Max the Manipulator that even when she tries to be genuine, there’s too much room for doubt. The mother-daughter thing never quite works, however; Weaver works better playing off Hackman, and Hewitt’s feisty fights with Lee are her strongest scenes.

  Maybe that’s because the men of Heartbreakers very nearly steal the show. Liotta is convincing as the put-upon Dean, befuddled and indignant and head over heels; his sense of comedy-on-the-edge hasn’t been this well-used since Goodfellas. Hackman provides some of the film’s funniest moments, his Tensy little more than a death’s head with smoke oozing from every pore, prattling on about promising tobacco marketing studies aimed at creating 9-year-old smokers. But it is Jason Lee (Mumford, Almost Famous) who gives the movie’s smartest, most likeable performance, equal parts smirk and sweetness. As far as romantic leads go, Lee probably deserves to be twice as famous as his Chasing Amy costar Ben Affleck or his Kissing a Fool costar David Schwimmer, but that’s Hollywood for you.

  The story line is a little on the laborious side, and Hewitt leaves Lee in the lurch one or two (OK, how about a dozen?) times too many, "I gotta go" being her favorite conversation stopper. So while you aren’t terribly preoccupied with the plot points, it’s best just to sit back and keep an eye out for the number of cameo appearances by everyone from Carrie Fisher (whose acting career now pretty much consists of cameos) to Shawn Colvin (who contributes to the film’s soundtrack as well).

  All in all, Heartbreakers has a mildly amusing script, a cast that does more with the material than one might imagine and a deliciously diabolical (if somewhat predictable) ending. But it still manages to make you laugh a time or two, and that’s certainly no crime.