Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Poor timing kept me from attending any of the press screenings of this one, but I’m very curious to see what Greg Jacobs has done with this remake. I loved NINE QUEENS dearly, and part of what made that film great was the setting. The film was more than just another con job movie, and it’ll be tricky to make this one work removed from the Argentinian setting of the original.
Here’s the first review:
Yo, Harry. Last night Greg Jacobs and Steve Mirrione came out to the USC film school and screened "Criminal," about a couple weeks away from its release, to a packed-house audience of about 350 people. For those who might read this not knowing much about the film, it's an adaptation of the popular and acclaimed "Nine Queens" from Argentina, and funded by Steven Soderbergh's Section 8.
I had mixed reactions to Criminal. From the first scene when we're introduced to Diego Luna's character, I really wanted to like this movie. John C. Reilly's character starts off completely flat and wooden, but quickly becomes sympathetic in his grouchiness and know-it-all-ness. Maggie Gyllenhaal is fiery, and supporting cast members turn solid performances.
You can really see Steve Mirrione's good influence on the picture, too, in terms of editing. L.A. is a character in this movie, just as it was in Swingers, a classic that Mirrione edited.
The problem with the movie is the general direction of the plot. Here we have a movie that could have been a fascinating adaptation of an Argentinian crime/con picture. Instead, Jacobs and his team have obviously tried to remake "The Sting," or a Sting-like movie, and in the end they fail. The film follows The Sting's formula in just about every respect- two dysfunctional buddies, one a small-time crook looking to help out someone dear to him and another a "know-it-all" bigger man, try to pull off the big con on a rich mark, and the film of course has the obligatory "gotcha" ending. But while "The Sting" has an ending that surprises you, that ending makes you think "wow, I get it, I can go back through the movie now and see how this makes sense, I thought I saw this or that taking place." You can think back and remember Robert Redford's character putting something on his teeth, and realize that it was the blood pack he used in the film's climactic scene.
Not so in this case. The film could have brilliantly ended with Luna's character making the decision he did at the bank and walking away back to his old life (and I won't spoil what that decision seemed to be). But then Jacobs and his team foolishly decided to throw on a Shyamalan-style (and bad Shyamalan, we are talking "The Village" here) twist at the end and flip things around completely, and the end product is a close to the film that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and that isn't hinted at in the least throughout the whole picture.
Mirrione and Jacobs stuck around for a Q&A with Leonard Maltin after the picture, and Jacobs admitted that given the chance, he'd go back and completely remake the movie, because what he had dreamed up in his head was so significantly different than the finished product.
Bottom line, a decent movie that got some good laughs and surprised people along the way. The interaction between Luna and Reilly, who are in every scene, is great. It's no Redford and Newman but it does the job. The original musical score is solid. The supporting cast does a good job. But the plot was just poorly thought out and executed and made this a poor shadow of the amazing movie it could have become.
If you use this, call me "The Mook!" Hopefully I'll have some other good scoops for you as the semester goes on and we get more new pictures screened for us.
--"The Mook"
The spectacularly cute Mrs. Mia Wallace sent in the details about the Q&A afterwards:
Hey daddios, Mrs. Mia Wallace here. Caught an advanced screening of “Criminal” tonight, along with a Q and A with the first-time writer/director Gregory Jacobs.
The caper film stars John C. Reilly in his first lead, with Diego Luna and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It is a remake of the Argentinian cult fave “Nueve Reinas” by Fabian Bielinsky. The film is scheduled to open September 10th.
I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t compare. This version was serviceable and engaging, if not as polished and mind-bending as the pitch-perfect “Diamond Men” and “Matchstick Men” we were treated to last year. But fans of the genre will not be steered wrong by checking this one out. There’s humorous moments, solid character work, and great shots of LA by oscar winning DP Chris Menges, arguably one of the world’s top five cinematographers.
Q and A with Gregory Jacobs 8/25/04
Q: How did you talk yourself into remaking the perfect “Nine Queens?”
A: I’m very courageous (laughs). I love “Nine Queens” too, but I felt like not a lot of people had seen it. I work in the industry and I knew only one other person who saw it. I thought it was not appreciated by the audience that deserved to see it. I felt like I could bring something different to it. Fabian Bielinsky was jazzed by it. I’ve been working as an AD for twelve years and he had too in Argentina so we had this connection. It wa either a really good or really bad idea.
Q: Since you can’t take portions out without making it nonsensical, how did you make your own?
A: I tried to make LA a character in the movie and bring issues of race and class, the stratification in LA into the movie. That was interesting and something I could cling to.
Q: It flies in the face of the American myth of a classless society.
A: I’ve lived in LA twelve years, and grew up in NYC. You’re constantly confronted there by people of all different races and classes on the street. LA is not like that. You’re mostly in your car. I love con movies, caper movies, dysfunctional buddy movies. Here was a chance to throw in the kitchen sink. I love 70s movies like “Midnight Cowboy” where there’s comedy but you cry.
Q: It opens September 10th, right before “Los Angeles Plays Itself.” He would like your film‘s faithfulness to LA locations.
A: We tried to be rigorous with that, even when they were walking from the hotel and the briefcase is grabbed. We had 28 days to make the movie. It’s a very literal walk. That stuff drives me crazy in movies. The actors liked it too. It’s great to be shooting where you are supposed to be.
Q: You produced “Solaris”, “Ocean’s 12”, “Full Frontal” with Soderbergh, who shares your love of caper films.
A: I love them because you they tend to be great character pieces. I think that stuff is really fun; when you’re taken on a ride and are invested in the characters.
Q: This is a much grittier, tauter, fat-free movie compared to the Ocean’s universe.
A: When you’ve got a real two-hander, these two guys, the less distraction from the supporting characters. I could get into their characters and let them digress, investigate into their characters like in the café when they talk about family.
Q: You viewed “Nine Queens” several times, and indeed whole scenes and chunks of dialogue are virtually identical.
A: The film had this great framework. Certain scenes I wanted to stage differently, but why mess with a good thing? I knew when to leave well enough alone.
Q: What quality first struck you about “Nine Queens”?
A: The basic framework of the con was pretty tight. I had to be careful not to take something out and unravel it. I didn’t want to break something that was good.
Q: The Diego Luna/John C. Reilly relationship is quite different and improved. Reilly is more high-strung, cynical.
A: It was more fun to play him that way. I like the idea of tweaking the relationship. I thought it would add to the whole piece. The dynamic was more interesting. I wrote it with John in mind and I thought it would be cool to see him pull it off. He’s never gotten to ramp up like that.
Q: John has never had a lead role. His characters in PT Anderson’s movies are the most memorable, and make everyone else’s work more interesting. It kind of reminds me of when Gene Hackman went from supporting to lead parts. They made a big deal out of it at the time, but now he’s a lead. This film feels like the breakthrough for John.
A: I kept thinking “Who is a young Gene Hackman?” One of the nights Soderbergh and I were writing and we watched “The French Connection” and were inspired by Popeye Doyle. John gets embarrassed when I say he’s a young Hackman. He doesn’t want Gene to hear that.
Q: There’s a similar physicality. A blue-collar authenticity. You added the failed con backstories and the “Three Strike You’re Out” aspect. That was a major detail.
A: I met with cops in the crime unit for a week for those backstories. I thought it was important, clearly it makes the stakes higher.
Q: The casting with Diego is interesting. Preserves a Latino element, but here he’s Mexican.
A: Obviously LA has a tremendous Latino community. It seemed so much a part of LA. I didn’t want him to be some gang-banger kid from East LA, that cliché. Diego through some friends of friends spent a couple weeks hanging out with families in East LA. He wanted to sound from East LA, not Argentina. He got a real immersion a month before shooting and loved it. He wants to go back.
Q: How was being a helmer different?
A: Even more questions and problems to solve then I imagined. It was terrifying. As an AD, at the end of the day, “It’s his movie. Fuck it, let him ruin it.” It was even harder. I always thought I was a darn good AD, protecting directors from questions. But wow. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I didn’t want to let down the people I had AD’d for.
Q: And two of your producers are fabulous directors. Clooney’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is a great first film. What did they say?
A: “You can do it, buddy! Go get ‘em! Call us when you’re done.” They were great, really left me alone. A lot of the pressure was self-imposed. You only get one shot, and I’ve waited a long time for mine. I didn’t want to blow it. I worked my way up from a PA, and people gave me a few million dollars (for this film). Soderbergh has 100 million and he’s tortured by it. Any good director feels tortured by that. Spielberg comes in under budget ahead of schedule every movie, and he wouldn’t need to. I think (our total budget) might have been a craft service budget of some of those movies. The great thing about LA is there’s a lot of flexibility with the unions, and we wanted to make a union film. All my buddies are union, and I wanted to work with them.
Excellent work as always, Mia. It’s always a pleasure to find something in the inbox from you, and I appreciate the review from “The Mook” as well. This one’ll be open in just a couple of weeks, so we’ll be able to check it out ourselves at that point.
"Moriarty" out.
