| Posted by: randythetool at September 16, 2003, 12:15 am | | Topic: Reviews: Matchstick Men Forum: JoBlo | | This and other reviews can be read at http://www.entropyx.com/randy ------------------------------------------------------- "Matchstick Men" hails the triumphant return of director Ridley Scott to the world of serious filmmaking, where the focus is on story and character, instead of violence, suspense, action... all the things that can bring a movie down. That's not to say that "Matchstick Men" lacks those elements, but that they arise from the plot, and allow the story to progress. This is a key downfall of Scott's recent work, notably "Gladiator." Throughout this new film, we can almost hear him apologizing to us, giving us the assurance that the master storyteller Ridley Scott, who gave us "Blade Runner" and "Thelma and Louise," is back, maybe for good. What do we have with "Matchstick Men?" A beautiful and brilliant tale that unfolds effortlessly, led by the best performance of the year in Nicolas Cage's Roy Waller. Much of the praise belongs to Nicholas and Ted Griffin's screenplay, but I can only commend Scott for fighting the urge to make this a con thriller by way of "Heist" or "The Thomas Crown Affair." There are times when we can sense a thriller just around the corner, and indeed there is a layer of thriller in "Matchstick Men," but the film really sings when its three principals are together. Nicolas Cage plays Roy Waller, an obsessive-compulsive with a twitching eye (I'd love to know how he did that!), single divorcee with a daughter he's not sure exists, who along with Sam Rockwell's Frank Mercer cons people out of their money every day. "I'm not a criminal. I'm a con artist. People give me their money," Waller tells his psychiatrist. Ordinarily, this setup would be more than enough for a relatively good con picture, and we get a taste of what it would be like as we watch these two on a con early in the movie, but then something happens that surprises Waller. Along comes his long-lost fourteen year-old daughter Angela, played with an astounding sweetness by Alison Lohman, looking to meet her dad. To watch the scenes between the quirky, twitchy Roy and the not-as-innocent-as-she-looks Angela is to experience the kind of delight which can't be put into words, and can be best expressed with tears of joy. As the film progresses, Roy tries to modify his heavily regimented life around the needs of a fourteen year-old girl, and she tries to figure out why her mother left him. "You don't seem like a bad guy," she tells him. He responds, "that's what makes me so good at it." There's a lot to "Matchstick Men," and I noticed a lot of ways it could have gone wrong, but not once did it go down the road of conventional con movies. Never have we been put inside the head of an obsessive-compulsive so well, and never before have we loved this character so much. Usually in the movies, the disorder is used because of the easy jokes that come with it (see "As Good as it Gets"), but here, we see the inner torment of Roy waller: the struggle to maintain his sanity as he cons people out of their money and tries to be a father. "Matchstick Men" is what it's like when you have a great story, and you tell it like it should be told. Welcome back, Ridley Scott. **** |
| |
Similar entries:
5 Ways To Save Nic Cage From Himself
What the latest DVD you picked up (every one)?
let's talk some con man movies
Reviews: Matchstick Men
[Req] The Best Con-Artist Films
What the latest DVD you picked up (every one)?
What the latest DVD you picked up (every one)?
Movies that are radical departures of style for the director?
The Strangers
Reviews: Matchstick Men
|
|
Shared Movies
Over 80 Million Movies and TV-Shows to choose from
Categories:
Spoiler TV Series Thriller Movie Celebrities Great Movie Star Wars Best Movies Horror Movie Blooper Worst Movies Film noir DVD Releases Film Festival Movie Rating Movie Theater Movie Review Anime Favourite Movie Comedy Movie Divx Movie
Links:
Forum Extractor
|