From its ambivalent title onward, the action and science-fiction hybrid Criminal is a dud, an alternately dull and sharp headache of a film, the very existence of which is mystifying. Let us get the convoluted story out of the way. It opens with the
[Show spoiler]murder
of a London-based CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds). He
[Show spoiler]dies
before he can reveal where he hid a cyber criminal (Michael Pitt) and a bag containing ten million dollars. His flustered superior (Gary Oldman) enlists a scientist (Tommy Lee Jones) researching memory retrieval and transference. Lo and behold, the only candidate in the world to receive the memories is a long-imprisoned sociopath with the movie-ready name of Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner). And so on and so forth, right? Jericho violently escapes after the implant. Wisps of information and imagery come to him slowly, along with the
[Show spoiler]late
spy's empathy and familial devotion. He is hunted by both the CIA and a Spanish anarchist (Jordi Mollà). The latter hopes to scorch the earth and incite nuclear winter because...the establishment.
The idiocy doubles and triples and quadruples as Criminal lumbers toward its inane conclusion. Rare is such wanton squandering of A-list talent. No one delivers a strong performance. Costner spends the first half trying very hard to portray Jericho as a burly, grunting, hard, ultra-violent son of a *****; at one point, I honestly thought he was going to commit a sexual assault. The character becomes almost repulsive, and it is entirely unearned when he transitions into a more standard-issue Costner-brand action hero. (The film in general has a hard time navigating its fusion of savagery and sentimentality. It would need to be significantly more courageous and intelligent to productively contend with how thin Jericho stretches the definition of "antihero.") Jones is half asleep, his obvious disinterest in the material only intensifying our frustration with him for agreeing to do it, while Oldman surely needed sleep after shouting his way through every scene, his every moment on the screen a frenzied variation on, "Give me the information, you bastard!" or "Scramble a team, now, now!" Pitt is a handsome and distinctive actor largely underutilized outside of Boardwalk Empire and a few art-house films, but he is cut short here by inexplicable character motivations and an arbitrary touch-and-go Dutch accent.
Reynolds is fortunate to depart so early, but not before he gags on an electric cattle prod in a bit of borderline torture pornography indicative of the film's meaner-than-usual spirit. As his character's
[Show spoiler]widow
, newly crowned Wonder Woman Gal Gadot fares best, at least conveying a bit of grace and sensitivity, though it severely strains credulity how easily she concedes, yes, this American lug with a foul temper and a festering head wound is surely a quasi-
[Show spoiler]reincarnation of my dead husband
and a suitable playmate for my child.
Add in point-and-shoot direction with zero personality or style and a trundling structure curiously devoid of the key genre ingredients of propulsion and rooting interest, and the result is a, forgive me, Criminal waste of resources and time, the audience's in particular.
F
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Criminal (2016)
Saw the trailer for this last week on my Apple TV. Looks 'meh' to be honest.
He's Deadpool to me.
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