Criminal (2004)

Directed by Gregory Jacobs. Starring John C. Reilly, Diego Luna, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Mullan, Zitto Kazann, Enrico Colantoni, Jonathan Tucker, Ellen Geer. [R]

Small-potatoes conman Reilly meets amateur hustler Luna in a casino and decides that the kid’s open-faced naïvety would make him a good partner for working bigger, more daring grifts, starting with a counterfeit scheme targeting Mullan’s currency collector. Quick and terse, but Reilly’s character is brittle and pugnacious instead of a smooth operator—sour company to keep even for fewer than ninety minutes, especially in frequent closeups—and no matter the number of twists and turns the story takes, it’s all too obvious where it’s heading. Clever construction and some good performances help make up for its utter lack of depth and memorability. Based on an Argentine film called Nueve Reinas. Director Jacobs co-produced with George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh; the latter also wrote the script with Jacobs under the pseudonym Sam Lowry.

58/100