Movie Review - Criminal

Criminal (2016)

Starring Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Alice Eve, Gal Gadot, Michael Pitt, Jordi Mollà, and Ryan Reynolds

Directed by Ariel Vromen

***This film is currently streaming via HBO Now/GO***

Not that it matters to this reviewer at all, but for some reason I thought Criminal was a Ryan Reynolds-starring film.  Considering this was released shortly after the huge (unwarranted) success of Deadpool, perhaps the marketing did genuinely play up Reynolds' involvement, but let it be known that the actor is barely in this piece.  Reynolds is Bill Pope, an American CIA agent working in London who has recently been in contact with a hacker known as The Dutchman (Michael Pitt) who broke into a variety of computer programs and gained access to a slew of worldwide nuclear codes.  The Dutchman was working for Xavier Heimdahl (Jordi Mollà), an anarchist who, upon discovering the Dutchman's betrayal, sets out to find Pope and find out where the CIA agent is hiding the hacker.  Pope refuses to talk and Heimdahl has him killed.  (I promise, that's not really a spoiler as it happens within the first fifteen minutes of the film.)  London CIA head Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman), who is also unsure of the Dutchman's location, contacts Dr. Micah Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) who has been working on an experimental treatment for the government where he implants the memories of one individual into another.  Considering the risky operation, the CIA chooses a nasty convict, murderer Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner), to test the treatment and, needless to say, Jericho doesn't necessarily follow orders when he's finally released from his isolated prison cell leading Agent Wells and his team to not only have to save the world from the Dutchman's boss, but also try and round up a criminal whom they've set loose in the city of London.

A long summary, yes, but the details at the start of Criminal are the most important...and frankly, the beginning is the only time this movie really works.  Sure, there's an obvious ludicrousness to the medical notions discussed, but it was at least moderately intriguing and slightly different which is more than can be said about the film's second two-thirds which devolve into a rote action chase film.  It's fun to see Kevin Costner as a bad guy -- albeit a bad guy with the memories of a good guy which sets up a slightly complicated character for Costner to sink his teeth into -- but the film Costner's Jericho Stewart is inhabiting is just too typical and ho hum to really become invested.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - I Origins

I Origins (2014)

Starring Michael Pitt, Steven Yeun, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, and Brit Marling

Directed by Mike Cahill

I admired director-screenwriter Mike Cahill's debut film Another Earth for being "different," taking a tale of grief and suffering and adding a sci-fi twist to it, but in the end, I found the feature lacking a bit in execution with its low budget unfortunately rearing its ugly head.  I Origins follows a very similar road of telling a story about grief and suffering with a sci-fi twist, but fares a little bit better thanks to a bit bigger budget and characters that feel more well-rounded.

Lately, I feel as if I've written about many movies that feel like two different films squished into one and I Origins is no exception.  When the film opens, molecular biologist Ian (Michael Pitt) and his grad student lab partner Karen (Brit Marling) are attempting to essentially create an eye for an animal that has no vision.  Through a series of (fortuitous?  fated?  random?) events one afternoon, Ian, who has always been fascinated with eyes since he was a young child, comes across a billboard of simply the eyes of a French woman named Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) with whom he spent an interesting night at a party.  Ian eventually finds Sofi again and falls madly in love with her and the two decide to get married.  On their elopement day, Karen gives Ian the fantastic news that she has found an earthworm that holds all the DNA necessary to "make" an eye, but doesn't currently have vision as one of its senses.  This discovery is the major stepping stone for all of Ian's work and he finds it necessary to cut his wedding day short to head to the lab.  This decision changes his life forever.

And unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult to talk about the rest of the film -- the better part of the film -- without spoiling things too much.  Needless to say, Ian's life takes a strange turn after that day with his success in the lab leading him down a path of both scientific and self-discovery that I found moderately fascinating.

The one thing that Mike Cahill's two films so far have going for them is this sense of intelligence brooding out of them.  You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand what's going on in the slightest, but he doesn't necessarily dumb things down to a point where a general audience would find his flicks palatable...and I like that about Cahill.  Here, science is absolutely in the forefront and what's even more intriguing is how Cahill integrates the battle between science and religion into the picture.  This is always a dichotomy that is a tricky one to embrace without upsetting either side and I think the director/screenwriter succeeds quite well.

Michael Pitt carries the film, but definitely comes alive in the second half -- along with everyone else, for that matter.  As we're watching, we know that the first half is leading up to something major, but it just takes a little too long to get there.  Fortunately, once we're there, it's worth the wait as I was quite captivated by the unique nature of the piece.  Much like Another Earth, I Origins will not be for everyone's tastes, but it may be worth a try if you're in the mood for something a bit thought-provoking and not so run-of-the-mill.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-