Criminal
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DVD details
Actor: Diego Luna, John C. Reilly, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Mullan, Zitto KazannBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
Published: 2005-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-12
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Criminal
DVD Review: "You look like a nice guy!"
Summary: 4 Stars
Criminal is full of shady characters that seem to revel in trying to outwit and outfox one another - they're people you just love to hate. Hard-edged and distrustful, they're constantly on the lookout to make a cheap buck and perhaps, with a stroke of luck, land the one big heist that'll finally make them millionaires. Richard Gaddis (John C. Reilly), the central character in this clever and diverting film, has spent most of his life as a petty confidence trickster, indulging in petty small-time scams in the hope that one day his own big windfall will come. He's an arrogant, slithery, and manipulative cynic, who thinks he has finally discovered his pot of gold, his road to millions in the form of a one-of-a-kind 1878 Monroe Silver Certificate.
Part caper, part buddy film, Criminal starts out with Richard observing Rodrigo (Diego Luna), a fresh-faced young con man, pulling a low-level bill-changing scam in a local Los Angeles casino. Impersonating a policeman, Richard handcuffs the young culprit and escorts him outside where he drops his disguise and pressures Rodrigo to become his protégé and temporary partner in crime. The young man, desperate to pay off his father's gambling debts, agrees. After an afternoon of swindling people out of money in Westwood, and showing off each other's respective skills in thievery, Richard receives a phone call from his bossy and officious sister Valerie, (a delicious Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Valerie demands that he come to the luxurious Biltmore Hotel, where she works as the concierge, and retrieve Ochoa (Zitto Kazann), who called out Richard's name after collapsing in the lobby. Apparently, the old man is a world-class counterfeiter, and he has a rare silver certificate, to sell to William Hannigan (Peter Mullan), an Irish multimillionaire, hotel guest, and collector of rare currency. Ochoa is trying to sell him the counterfeit silver certificate before Hannigan has to exit the country for tax reasons. Richard sees his chance to finally score the big time, and insists on taking over the operation, giving both Ochoa, and his young new partner a percentage of the action.
Of course, as with all caper films, things don't exactly go according to plan, and the two buddies end up navigating through a minefield of bad luck. Everyone seems to want to get in on the action and obtain a piece of the pie. Some of the best scenes of the film are the spats that take place between Richard and Valerie, and from the outset it is obvious that there's bad blood between them: She is angry at him for cheating her and their younger brother, Michael (Jonathan Tucker), out of their share of the family estate, and she worries that the presence of Richard and his troublemaker friends will endanger her job. Richard sees her as a hard-nosed, petty, and ruthless witch, who just won't cooperate with his scams; she views him as an inconsequential and selfish swindler who is willing to sell out his own family just a make a quick buck.
The performances are complex and full of trickery just like the endless serpentine plot. John C. Reilly is good, imbuing his character with a delicious mixture of angst-ridden frustration and shady disloyalty. Maggie Gyllenhaal radiates the intelligence, charm, and efficiency as the world's most polished and focused concierge; but you know there lays just a hint of something slippery underneath the poise. Diego Luna projects a mask of wide-eyed innocent sweetness, but there's also something subversive and underhanded lurking beneath his surface. When the deals are struck, the percentages are parceled to an increasing number of conspirators, and the grand design and its motives are finally revealed, most viewers will probably be tempted to watch Criminal all again, just to put the interconnected pieces of the plot together. Mike Leonard April 05.
Description of Criminal
A $750,000 ONE-NIGHT SCORE AWAITS RICHARD & RODRIGO IS THEY CAN FLIM-FLAM AN ANTIQUE CURRENCY COLLECTOR - A RUSE SOON PACKEDWITH MORE TWISTS THAN A BOX A PRETZELS.Richard Gaddis (John C. Reilly) catches young Rodrigo (Diego Luna) conning some casino waitresses out of chump change and decides the guy is just the right chump to help him run other local scams. The slyest thing about this diverting remake of the 2000 Argentinian heist flick Nine Queens is, in fact, how much everybody seems to have a scam in the works--there isn?t a single honest soul in sinful, sunbeaten Los Angeles. Richard and Rodrigo soon get caught up in a big swindle concerning some counterfeit currency, a game that ensnares Gaddis? angrily estranged sister Valerie (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the concierge of the hotel that?s hosting the guys? main mark (Peter Mullan, coolly brutish). What happens next isn?t really anything new--The Sting, anyone?--and the requisite final twist might not hold up to closer inspection, but director Gregory Jacobs knows how to lie back and it keep it gliding affably along (he served as an assistant director on nearly all of Steven Soderbergh?s films). The performers all hook into the low-key vibe: Reilly?s schlub persona fits snugly into his small-time grifter role, while Luna and Gyllenhaal seem more simmering and sexy in each new shot. The movie is as entertaining and inessential as L.A. itself. --Steve Wiecking
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