Criminal review: “A talented director and impressive cast does not a good movie make”

Criminal review: The talented Ariel Vromen and his impressive cast fail to ignite the screen with this sub-par action film set in and around London.

Ariel Vromen, writer and director of the superb The Iceman, the Michael Shannon movie that debuted in cinemas a couple of years back, unites the ultimate movie cast for his follow-up, Criminal. Here’s The Hollywood News’ Criminal review by Paul Heath.

Kevin Costner leads as the character of Jerico Stewart, a death-row inmate who has been singled out as the only man who can save the planet from nuclear disaster. Jerico is apparently the only vessel who can use the brain power of fallen C.I.A. agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) to find out the whereabouts of a hacker who has the power to launch nuclear weapons. Obviously the C.I.A. aren’t the only ones who are after him, and it soon becomes a race against time for Jerico to use Pope’s memories and skills to locate him before the bad guys do.

As stated above, Criminal has quite the cast. Apart from Costner and Reynolds, we also have the current Wonder Woman in Gal Gadot, who appears as Pope’s widow, Gary Oldman as a shouty C.I.A. agent heading up the case, Tommy Lee Jones also playing against type as the humble neurosurgeon who conducts Jerico’s brain-swapping procedure, and also Michael Pitt as the missing hacker Jan Stroop. Oh, and there’s Alice Eve, Scott Adkins and Colin Salmon also in the mix. Great cast and interesting story aside, the film suffers from its own identity crisis. On the one hand, you have a mind-bending, very Face/ Off-esque story, and on the other a gritty, realistic action film reminiscent of the Paul Greengrass Bourne movies – and it doesn’t quite work. Director Ariel Vromen rather nicely prefers to shoot his action in the streets of Croydon and New Cross rather than the more well-known parts of London, which, while a welcome departure from the usual actioners set in the capital (we’re looking at you London Has Fallen), doesn’t really balance with the very far-fetched sci-fi-like body swap, slightly far-fetched storyline at the heart of the movie.

The action set pieces are well choreographed, though the film’s very fast-paced editing and hand-held camera style is almost too much in places for the viewer to take in. There are plot holes aplenty; the story lags all too often, and its grunting main protagonist, though a departure for Costner, is very unlikeable. Tommy Lee Jones’ sombre doctor is instantly forgettable, and Gary Oldman’s performance as Quaker Wells is one which you wish you could forget; an altogether over-the-top caricature.  Reynolds is fairly decent, but his luck runs out very early on, and Gal Gadot manages to bring some humanity to the film with her grieving widow, who may just end up sleeping with a death row inmate who might have some traces of her dead husband somewhere inside him. Yes.

Criminal lives up to its title, a low-par effort from a very talented director and hugely talented cast who you really can’t believe showed up in the first place.

Criminal review by Paul Heath, April 2016.

Criminal is released in UK cinemas from Friday 15th April, 2016.