No. 41 Criminal (2004) 19 of 100

 

If you crossed ‘Training Day’ and ‘The Grifters’ you’d get something similar to this film. John C Reilly plays Richard, a small time con man who makes a few bucks by carrying out confidence tricks and other scams. We meet him in a casino as he observes a young Mexican man, Rodrigo, attempt to scam some waitresses using the familiar ‘I gave you $100, and you give me $30 and I’ll give you $50’ type con. He’s quickly rumbled and only escapes arrest when Richard steps in pretending to be a cop to get Rodrigo off the premises.

Richard lets Rodrigo know he’s a trickster and offers to show him some scams by way of an audition. Richard has recently parted ways with his partner ‘The Jew’ and is looking for a new henchman. The two work some low level scams which involve conning old ladies and restaurants out of a few bucks. Rodrigo, who Richard renames ‘Brian’ as Anglo names are more trusted, needs some money for his father’s medical bills. Richard meanwhile has some expensive legal bills to pay.

Opportunity knocks when an old contact of Richard offers then a chance to take over a scam that he can no longer operate due to ill health. The scam involves a forged silver treasury bill which is worth thousands and a mark has been set up to buy the counterfeit currency. There are however issues from the start. The buyer, Peter Mullen in usual ‘Fuck Off’ territory, can only be in town for one night and he has a man in place to test the bill’s veracity. The deal is also taking place at a hotel where Richard’s sister Maggie Gyllenhaal is concierge and the two have issues over a shared inheritance.

Things complicate further when the forged bill is stolen and soon Richard is giving away percentages of the deal to several parties to keep the scam afloat. Eventually the deal nears completion but both Mullen and Maggie have demands that need to be met before the deal can go through.

With the deal done all that remains is to split the money, but as you’d expect things are not all as they seem and there are a couple of twists left before the credits roll.

This was an enjoyable drama, that although not billed as a comedy certainly spiralled towards the ridiculous towards the end. I like Reilly as a comedy actor but I didn’t really buy him as a slick conman. That may have been the point but it’s hard to see him in anything but in a Chewbacca mask, movie quality or otherwise. Diego Luna was better as Rodrigo and it was clear from the start that he was smarter than he let on.

Poor old Michael Shannon only gets one scene as hapless mugger Gene, but it’s a funny one. After the scam goes down Gene shows up to steal the cash and do Rodrigo out of his share. Unfortunately Gene gets his lines wrong and exposes himself as a plant. He looks young in this and is very skinny. It’s comical as his menace quickly reduces to begging, once his cover is blown.

A lot of the scams seen had been done before and were certainly executed better in ‘The Grifters’. Here a kind of cinema verity is employed with all the action taking place in the course of one day and mostly shot from handheld cameras. It does look a bit cheap, but also down and sleazy which I’m sure is what was being aspired to.

The 90 odd minutes flashed by and although the big twist wasn’t that surprising it was a fun ride with enough twists and fast talking to keep me engaged.

When is Shannon-On? - 1.15:33

Outcome? Looking for his next fix / hustle

Film 3.5/5

Shannon Stars 2.5/5