Criminal | Review

Member of the Soderbergh clan makes a remake that is routine rather than re-energized.

The long-time assistant to and pupil of Steven Soderberg delivers the sort of rehashed Americanized remake that relocates much of the noteworthy double-crossing plot devices from its Argentinean cousin but fails to mold Fabián Bielinsky’s Nine Queens into an newly inventive, duplication-worthy, con game affair.

Besides changing the accents and altering the props, writer-director Gregory Jacobs takes the L and the A in Latin America and transfers it into the L.A. of the city of Los Angeles. Reformatted into a narrative-thin, 87-minute product, this sees John C. Reilly (Chicago) lead the charge in a role that he once played opposite of in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight. In a nutshell, Criminal sees the not-so-accidental pairing of two swindlers, one who is an expert trickster and one who needs some practice. Together they go from the ABC’s of petty thefts and into the world series of con jobs with the major score where everyone involved wants bigger piece of the cake. Jacobs’ script is an efficiently tame one, where convoluted characterizations are haphazardly placed within facile circumstances giving one neatly packaged, tragically dull and foreseeable denouement.

Reilly’s Richard is concocted as a walking contradiction – during some spurts he is displayed as a desperate man only one strike away from jail-time, while during other moments he carries the allure of a confidently unconvincing slick and devious tradesman. Further complicating matters is Diego Luna’s (The Terminal) take as the “silent partner” who supposedly knows less than his mentor, but continually restates that he never had and never will execute a proper poker face. Though not all of the film’s surprises are easy to spot, it is not that difficult to find the unsatisfying answer in identifying the cat and the mouse in the “who’s swindling who game”. Jacobs statically-weaved text demands little attention, its tidy, quick and easy package that prods about, but offers little on the menu as stimulation of the senses is concerned.

Regretfully, the insertion of Maggie Gyllenhaal (Casa de los Babys) or Peter Mullan (Young Adam) proves to be of little significance,- there seems to be little time for character development and ample time for the all-to-important nurturing of the cons aspect in the script. Jacobs long-term apprenticeship from the school of Soderbergh shows that the graduate missed a couple of classes on “how to make a remake course”, this one feels like a poor man’s Ocean’s Eleven with a lack of enthusiasm. Here Jacobs sticks to a patterned outline – and there is nothing more “criminal” than recreating a film without asking what and where the original could have done better. Save your money and rent the original.

Viewed at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Rating 1.5 stars