Half of 'The Heart of Justice' consists of a recurrent series of situations after a crime was committed.
Elliot Burgess (Dermot Mulroney) is an aristocratic youngster from the high society of New York, and he assassins a successful author of bestsellers, Austin Blair (Dennis Hopper), after the old man has been having an affair with his teenage sister, Emma Burgess (Jennifer Connelly), in the exclusive club, where all the Burgesses usually spend their summer.
Particularly, Blair's latest novel blatantly portrays all the Burgess in a satirical way, out of the pillow-talk from such an affair.
There also is incest suggested between both siblings as one of the motivations for the crime.
As usual with the 'Neo Noir' productions, 'The Heart of Justice' is almost flawless technically, exuding all the enthusiasm of a 100-percent American genre in plain Manhattan.
Similarly, the cast is awesome; Connelly perfectly takes up the role of the demolishing 'femme fatale' in this story, in this case being a teenage lady, just coming out from high school. This is HER movie, indubitably.
However, 'The Heart of Justice' skids in its approach to the story; the profile and the demeanor of its characters don't correspond to real 'yuppies' from the 'top of the world'.
The movie also fails managing the series of events; the extensive series of flashbacks usually turn uninteresting and awkward.
The success of the Columbo TV series had to do with the clown side of the weird detective; such a story-spoiler-style wouldn't fit in a 'Noir' (or 'Neo Noir') movie though, always so bleak and intellectual.
