Raymond Fernandez (Jared Leto, Panic Room) is a smooth-talking con man who loves to place ads in the personal columns and then bilk lonely war-widows out of their money. One fateful day, the sulty Martha Beck (Salma Hayek, Ugly Betty) answers his ad. They meet, make passionate love and as is his way, Ray snatches a paycheck from Martha's purse before stepping out to find his next mark, a wealthy widow at her husband's funeral. As Ray makes his play on the widow, he is caught in a lie and the dead man's son attacks him, knowing him for what he is - a con. At just the right moment, Martha steps up, verifies his story and pulls her poor "husband" away to safety, mortified at the family's response to Ray's noble intentions. As it turns out, Martha is just like Raymond and had him figured out almost from the start. As it turns out, Ray and Martha have something in common - lust. Lust for money, lust for each other and a lust for blood. At that moment, a partnership is forged, one that would leave a string of broken hearts and lives across the U.S.
As the body count rises, detectives Elmer C. Robinson (John Travolta, Hairspray) and Charles Hildebrandt (James Gandolfini, Sopranos) become involved in the case. Robinson, troubled by the suicide of his own wife and unable to communicate with his teenaged son, secretly seeks solace in the arms of co-worker Rene Fodie (Laura Dern, Jurassic Park), while spending countless hours working to crack the case. The main thing stumping them in this case is the complete lack of bodies. Since the women simply go missing, they can't make the case. Travolta and Gandolfini are perfect as hardened cops single-mindedly focused on getting their man (and woman), and Scott Caan makes an appearance as arrogant and brash fellow cop, Detective Reilly.
With Martha posing as Raymond's lovely sister, they go from place to place meeting and seducing war widows. Once the deal is sealed and the victims have transferred their money to a joint account with Ray, upon the promise of marriage, things turn bad. Unfortunately, Martha is incredibly jealous and psychopathic and she goes ballistic when she sees Raymond getting intimate with the women. In one case, as poor, pathetic Janet Long (Alice Krige, Silent Hill) is finally making love to the man she thinks loves her, Martha spoils the fun by cracking the woman's head open with a hammer. As things progress, Ray connects with a lovely woman named Delphine (Dagmara Dominczyk) and her daughter Rainelle (Bailee Madison, Bridge to Terabithia). Young Rainelle is immediately suspicious of Raymond and his "sister" Martha. As they make plans to be one big, happy family, sweet and naïve Delphine reveals to new "sister" Martha her love for Ray and that they are going to have a baby. Martha goes insane and while it's not completely revealed what she does to Delphine and Rainelle, the results are deadly as she demands that Ray murder Delphine immediately to prove that he truly loves only her.
Robinson and Hildrebrandt follow the clues and eventually catch up to the out-of-control duo once they begin locating the buried bodies, and eventually bring them to justice. Ray and Martha, crazy and in love until the bitter end, meet their fate at Sing Sing, being electrocuted one after the other.
While this certainly isn't a happy movie, it's really interesting to see how twisted people could be way back in the 40's. We think of that time as more idyllic than present day, but people were just as warped back then as they are now. The acting is superb and while I had a hard time thinking of Jared Leto as a Latin lover, he did well in the role. That is more of a personal opinion than a statement on his abilities.
Extras include a making-of featurette that gives further background to the film for those who want to dig deeper. If you are looking for an interesting murder mystery steeped in history, give this one a rent. The acting is excellent, the script is well written and the cops get the bad guys in the end.
