Written and directed by Leonard Kastle
Lonely and self-conscious because of her weight, Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) is talked into joining a Lonely Hearts correspondence club where she starts a pen pal relationship with Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), a con man who makes his living seducing and swindling women. Martha’s desperately in love with Ray, and when she becomes wise to his ways she decides to join the con. The two of them chase scores together, posing as brother and sister, but Martha’s jealousy of the women Ray’s seducing becomes an issue and things escalate from there.
The Honeymoon Killers is damn near perfectly perfect and a dark, dark true story. It’s too late to be traditional noir, but I’m adding it anyway because…you’ll see if you watch it. This is the movie Natural Born Killers aspired to be and failed.
5- (5) stars
*The video quality of the Criterion Blu-ray needs special mention. The picture is [I]gloriously[/I] grainy, teasing so much detail out of the film source that some shots look almost 3D due to texture.
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