Written by Old Bluffer 20th Apr 2007

Written by Biscuit

Max (Sigourney Weaver) and Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are a Mother and Daughter con team. Their modus operandi is for Max to lure wealthy men into marrying her and soon after the wedding catch her daughter Page in a comprising position with her new hubbie, netting the both of them a nice divorce settlement.

The proven partnership begins to show cracks though, when Page announces that she wants to leave the nest and start up her own conning business. Her mother then resorts to conning her own daughter into believing that they have no money as the IRS has claimed unpaid taxes and so they set off to Palm Beach Florida for one last con.

Once in Palm Beach they review the possible cons, a middle aged doctor who lives with his mother, a play boy who likes ménage-a-cinq etc, but they finally set their sights on Billionaire William B Tensy who is the owner of Tensy tobacco. Tensy is a chain smoking, puffing, overweight, elderly man with a nose reddened by burst capillaries (played by Gene Hackman - the character, not the nose) who spends a considerable amount of time trying to cough up his guts. [I would like to add further details about Tensy however he pretty much just spends his entire time during the film chain smoking and coughing to the point of collapse - Biscuit]

Max now devotes weeks to making Tensy fall in love with her, finally resulting in a proposal of marriage.

I can't work out which Tensy has abused more: His lungs or his feet - forcing them into those lurid socks.

Whilst Max excuses herself to the bathroom to secretly phone Page with the good news, Tensy strips off to his undergarments (white shirt and pants with the most shockingly vivid luminous green socks) and announces to the returning Max that they should now cement their union. As Max (unsurprisingly) insists that they wait until their marriage day Tensy goes into yet another coughing fit and in doing so falls and smashes his head on the penis of a life-sized nude statue that he has given to his wife-to-be. Tensy collapses to the floor ending up lying with the broken off penis in his mouth.


A moment that surely stands out in Gene Hackman's long and rock solid career, and really sticks in his throat.

Although Max attempts mouth to mouth resuscitation she only manages to inhale and puff out a considerable amount of smoke from Tensy's lungs (savour that smooth, smooth Tensy taste that lingers on and on!), and is unable to revive the now dead chain smoker.


Secondhand smoke is never nice, but they could sell Tensy's corpse as an exotic bong...

It should be noted that Max is devastated with her fiancé's demise - if he'd only waited until after the wedding she would have been set up for life!

Editor Note: we don't really know for certain how old Tensy died. It could have been a heart attack, catastrophic lung failure or just fatal concussion from the stone todger - it is clear that he is very frail though, and it's really a wonder he lived as long as he did - Old Bluffer.