For a chick-flick, the film does well to aim no higher than some shallow raunchy old fun. There is enough air in the beginning romp to draw you in. It is only when you find yourself predicting exact lines and jokes that you begin to wonder if there is much meat left past the first hour.
As the mother in a mother-daughter con-woman pair, Sigourney Weaver is suitably comical and lascivious by turns. Subjective opinion: I found her significantly more fetching than the younger Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is pesky as usual but teenagers and brain candy diehards may find her entertaining in that lightly adoloscent way. Liotta I simply feel sorry for, what a tragic waste of Goodfellas calibre talent. Gene Hackman serves reliably as an aging stumblebum, but gets no more than ten minutes of actual screentime.
Given the film’s clear Dirty Rotten Scoundrels halo, one cannot help expecting some clever twist that will make all this farce worthwhile. Sadly, that never quite comes. Instead the film breaks into a half-bummed pondering of profound issues: the need for the mother to Let Go, the importance of true love that trumps a grifter’s dayjob, and suchlike. All of which is ham-handed and tacked on to the last hour in a cloying rush.
At best a fluffy rental for evenings when nothing else is on. Know that you are watching a light chick-flick and you will do fine.