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A pair of test-screening reviews on remake of NINE QUEENS called CRIMINAL!
Hey folks, Harry here with two looks at Section 8's remake of NINE QUEENS called CRIMINAL. We've got two, very different takes on it. One from a reader familiar with the brilliant original, and the second who knew nothing other than the film before her. The first was disappointed, the second liked it quite a bit. Here ya go and beware of spoilers...
Harry;
I just saw a screening of CRIMINAL, the movie produced by Soderbergh, and Clooney, directed by Soderbergh long time AD, starring John C. Reilly and Diego Luna.
As you may know Criminal is a remake of an Argentinean movie called NINE QUEENS.
CRIMINAL is another bad re-make of a great film. Everything that made NINE QUEENS great makes CRIMINAL bad.
For starter NINE QUEENS is about two guys that "work" the streets of Buenos Aires, and what other way to work the streets are there than walking, Buenos Aires is a walking city, kind of like New York, Buenos Aires is a character in NINE QUEENS. In CRIMINAL they spent half the say on a brand new Benz. The movie takes place in LA, which is not a walking city, so you never get a feel for the city that is so important in the original. But the biggest failure is in the casting, especially Reilly. Reilly is a great character actor, notice I said character actor. He can't carry a movie by himself, never has, and certainly he did no in this case. The only way we can care about his character is if he is charming, and funny, and Reilly is either, this movie calls for someone like Clooney himself, or even Ed Burns in Confidential.
The chemistry between the two main characters never works, you don't care for either one, and with out caring for them the movie is pointless.
The story is great, so I'd recommend to anyone who has an inch of curiosity to check this movie out to go to the nearest blockbuster and rent NINE QUEENS.
Hope you'll post thisnext, Garbo Talks... and she's never heard of NINE QUEENS and didn't bring that wonderful baggage in with her...
Hey Cool Folks,
I'm a huge fan of the site but this is my first direct
missive to y'all. Tonight I found myself in a test
screening in Hollywood for a new WB movie called
"Criminal"- starring John C. Reilly and Diego Luna (of
Y Tu Mama Tambien fame). Maggie Gyllenhaal, hottie
that she is, also plays a pivotal role. I went in
without any preconceived notions either way and must
say that I came out the other side feeling like this
one is genuinely a smart, twisty-turny ride. Not to
say that it's perfect. They announced that this is
the first screening and some of that shows. There are
definitely some chinks in the armor. But more on that
later.
Since this is a con-man movie with a big twist, I'll
abstain from revealing the big spoiler. Here's the
basic deal. The movie is a gritty, realistic look at
the life of two guys from different sides of the
tracks in L.A. J.C. Reilly is a professional
con-artist who drives a Lexus and wears a suit and
Diego is a poor kid from East L.A. John C. considers
himself high end but he needs a new partner to pull
off his schemes. With his sights on the young,
scruffy Diego - J.C.R. comes up with a way to save the
kid from getting busted by posing as a cop. The
opening scene is slick and jarring as the two are
thrown together at a seedy casino and small-time Diego
reluctantly agrees to give it a go for the day with
this cocky pro.
J.C.R. proceeds to school Diego on the ins and outs of
scams. This is small-scale spoiler stuff! But,
there's a great scene in an elevator where Diego
proves his metal by betting his partner that he can
get a woman to give him her purse in under a couple
minutes. He fakes an elevator emergency, climbs out,
and the woman hands it over. Genius.
The movie really gets cooking when we hit the big
scam. Maggie G., JCR's sister in the movie, works at
a fancy downtown hotel in L.A. She calls John after
one of his former partners makes a scene in the hotel.
It turns out that this guy is trying to sell some
forged copies of very expensive rare currency to a
super rich collector who is staying at the hotel.
But he's too old and sick to pull off the deal. For
our guys, this is the scam of a lifetime and JCR sees
the angle right away. Much bigger than the small time
stuff we've seen them pull off all day. For a minute
there, they seem to get what they want? not for long
though. Their greed takes hold and sucks them deep
into a complex web. Everything imaginable goes wrong
and it culminates with a shocking hurdle. BIG SPOILER
HERE - In order to pull of the deal, John C. has to
convince his sister to sleep with the rich collector.
Imagine asking your sister to sleep with someone so
you can make big money! We're in the land of low-tech
con movies like THE GRIFTERS -tough and shocking.
Which brings me to what I dug most about this movie -
it's the performance of a lifetime for John C. Reilly.
(He's one of my personal favorites.) Gone are the
days of his roles as the weepy guy whose wife is
cheating on him (I think he actually had 2 of those
last year alone.) Here, he gets to play a real dick.
Funny, his character name is Richard (Dick). But he's
a dick that we love to hate. He's a selfish, racist,
a'hole, who preys on anyone and everyone - from old
ladies to his own family. He seems to be channeling
Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle in the guise of a con man.
Now for the negative - I'm not going to say what the
ending is- (even with a spoiler alert, with this kind
of movie, it's just too cruel) but we end up feeling
like all of LA must have been in on the con. Also,
the ending doesn't quite measure up to the rest of the
movie. That's a big deal here - because we want to
feel as good as we did when Brian Singer spun our
heads at the end of USUAL SUSPECTS.
All in all, it's DEFINITELY worth seeing. It's a
really fresh character piece disguised as a con-movie.
Does anyone out there know who the director is? It
nails the underbelly of LA and the bizarre but
unforgettable relationship between JCR and Diego
reminds me of Voight and Hoffman in MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
Could it be the ghost of John Schlesinger?? There
were no credits on the movie so I'm curious to know
who's behind it.
Well, there you have it.
Signing off,
Garbo
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+ Expand All
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Holy Cow!!
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is a plant. Nine Queens rocked. The Vanishing, La Femme Nikita...let's screw up another.
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So he can't carry a film? Go rent Hard Eight and tell me other wise. It also features the three best character actors working today: Reilly and the Brilliant Three-Named Philips (Baker Hall and Seymour Hoffman). OK, I may buy that Reilly may not be ready for a studio-pic lead, but I'll still watch him over Edward Burns any day. Confidence, my ass.
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So he can't carry a film? Go rent Hard Eight and tell me other wise. It also features the three best character actors working today: Reilly and the Brilliant Three-Named Philips (Baker Hall and Seymour Hoffman). OK, I may buy that Reilly may not be ready for a studio-pic lead, but I'll still watch him over Edward Burns any day. Confidence, my ass.
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Oct 15, 2003 10:55:55 PM CDT
To accommodate American tourists, the good people at the Louvre
by superpaddy
This news comes as no great surprise, this act of pillage was always on the cards. I saw Nine Queens on its theatre release in Dublin about two years ago, having read its excellent reviews. I don
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NIGHTWATCH, INSOMNIA, TRAFFIC, OCEAN'S ELEVEN, SOLARIS and now he's remaking NINE QUEENS. Considering that remakes are seen as the domain of the most unimaginative, bottom-feeding Hollywood hack I wonder what his devoted followers think. And KILL BILL kicked my ass from one end of the cinema to the other.
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Oct 16, 2003 12:38:54 AM CDT
I don't want to give away the ending, so instead I'll just give
by vealchop
nice move! I guess it's not that big a deal, since in the original film you can smell the big "twist" coming a mile away. If this one's worse, then all the more obvious, I suppose.
Anyone noticed yet that most of the Soderbergh-produced movies are pretty frickin' lame? -
i'm sorry, that term has just always bugged me...i mean aren't all actors character actors?
isn't that the point? -
It's out on DVD. It's very cool. I saw it in Cannes last year, Harry posted my review. I respect Clooney and Soderbergh, but I have my doubts that a remake can capture the coolness and character of the original. The chemistry is great between the two male leads, and the female lead is quite the hottie. I love Maggie, but Leticia Br
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Do you know how much money you could save by just giving foreign movies wide releases? That's a couple big bags of blow and a call girl you're wasting on the remake right there! Do subtitles limit audience appeal? Sure; so do R ratings or treacly soundtracks by Sting. Get over it. Yours truly, Christopher3.
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Ugly.
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you're the first chick to ever visit our geek laden site. please never come back because women aren't allowed. your review was very timid. please don't ever right "a'hole" is makes you look stupid. go home i love you.
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john c reily can carry a sky scrapper and a film with ease and charm you idiot. ed burns is a moron and phil hoffman scene in hard eight was improved. is hoffman going to be ignatius?
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The director is Soderberghs former 1st AD, I believe. Here's the deal. You've seen one con man movie you've seen them all. Nothing is new since House of Games or The Sting. Just watched Confidence...YAWN. Who didn't know Eddie was in control the whole time? And crazier gets...the more you know it's a BIGGER con. And how about how all these BIG cons rely on certain charcters having VERY specific reactions? Hey, the coolest con man movie lately was Matchstick Men. Thanks to 3 great performances (Lohman was luminous. She should be a star), great direction and design and an interesting fun central relationship. The ending was...enhhh. But way better then Confiedence or it's ilk. For a really good, well written and acted "scam" movie check out the underrated Best Laid Plans (which has a similar dilemma as Reilly seems to face laid out in the second review). It's stylish, has great dialogue, a compelling love story, and great performances by Nivola and Witherspoon. It got sadly swept under the rug. Produced by none other then bug eyed Chris Moore of Greenlight fame. He actually can pick a cool script. As for Soderbergh, yeah he comes like a genius. He keeps standing on the shoulders of cool movies to remake. His best remake is the Underneath. Watch what he does with film noir. I'm gonna check out Nine Queens (rented it but never get to watch it) hope its not another foriegn film that should be a thriller and is BORING. Hello Trouble with Harry? A great Spanish film? Intacto! Laters
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When I got the screening passes, I was psyched. A remake of a good foreign flick produced by Clooney and starring John C. Reilly. Thought it would also be interesting since the film was co-written and directed by Greg Jacobs, Soderbergh's longtime first assistant director. My guess is, Greg will be back to scheduling movies and over-seeing set operations soon. To put it bluntly, the film... sucked. I saw it with a friend, and the more we discussed it over coffee afterward, the less we both liked it. For one thing, the entire film hinges on one event that is so up to chance, that you have to completely suspend your disbelief just to go along with it. So let's say that you let this one element slide - Doesn't matter because the "twist" ending is so unbelieveable that it makes you wish you could go back in time to before you saw the film and ignore those screening passes. Also, the film runs about 90 something minutes, but feels like it's 3 hours long. This is mostly due to the fact that after every scam, there is a long protracted dialogue scene in Reilly's flashy MBZ. Here's an example: They go to meet this guy in a hotel. The guy tells them he's interested in what they're selling. He tells 'em to come back in an hour. He wants his authentication guy to check the goods. They go drive around and talk about nothing. They go back. The authentication guy gives a tumbs up. They are told to come back in two hours to collect their money. They go drive around and talk about nothing. They come back with the money. He tells Reilly he'll do the deal, but only if he can fuck Reilly's sister. What??!!! The twists are mediocre at best. The pace is slow. The performances middling. And the family subplot between Reilly, Gylenhaal and one of the little kids from "Sleepers" - The thing that's supposed to make the end matter? It's weak. All it does is slow things down and make you even more pissed off at the end. There are more things wrong with this film than I care to waste your time with. You wanna see John C. kick ass in a leading role? Watch "Hard Eight." This movie blew.
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