Review of Criminal – Entertaining, But Unbelievable, Thriller Lead by Kevin Costner

Criminal is a contemporary espionage, sci-fi thriller starring Kevin Costner, While entertaining just too ambitious at times to be a great movie. Sometime less is more folks.

There is is this foreign agent known as The Dutchman (Michael Pitt) has advertised online his ability and willingness to provide a computer app that can bring down the free world in flames by launching nuclear rockets at will.

Dutchman’s last contact with the West was with CIA agent Bill Pope, played by Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds’ character is killed by terrorists while trying to bring The Dutchman into secure custody.

The CIA branch in London, where the movie takes place, has grabbed an American scientist, Dr. Frank (Tommy Lee Jones), who has worked with a program that plants the memory of one (dead) person into the brain of another (living) person.

They need a living person’s brain in which to seed the memory of Reynolds’ agent Pope, because he was the last person on Earth who had contact with the elusive and potentially catastrophic Dutchman.

Now this is where we get one strong performance from Kevin Costner as Jerico Stewart, a hardcore death row prisoner who is chosen as the perfect subject for this “Save the World” experiment.

Over a short period of time, the memories of Reynolds’ character begin to seep into Jericho’s mind and personality. He finds that he can speak French, even though he thinks it’s Spanish. Yes, this is well wore territory for the sci-fi movie goer and sadly this is an area where the movie over reaches and does not bring much new to the matter.

Touching scenes follow when Jericho breaks into Pope’s home and encounters his widow and young daughter. He can explain the inner emotions of the dead husband to his widow. While some what predictable, Costner does it in a strong and loving manor.

Sadly this is also where the world turns implausible fast and stretches the bounds of credulity. We get ton of chases, car crashes and gun battles between good and bad in London.  During this time we get see Jericho reverting to his previous true self!

Rating- Two Out of Five Stars

 

 

Now the star power will undoubtedly  draw audiences to movie theaters. Sadly this film bundles too many movie themes into one script and not really hitting the the target on most of them. In doing so, it can even be hard to follow in the later stages.  It is fun popcorn movie, if you can turn off the reality meter in your head.  But it could have been so much more.

Cast and Crew Info

It comes from Avi Lerner’s  Millennium Pictures and is being released by Summit and Lionsgate on Friday.