Kevin Costner lives the life of another man’s thoughts, in the newest sci-fi action offering “Criminal”. The spy thriller, directed by Ariel Vromen, stars Kevin Costner as Jericho Stewart, a top criminal in the FBI database who doesn’t feel any remorse or emotion for the chaos he creates. Ryan Reynolds is Bill Pope, a CIA agent who picks up a package, only to discover that it’s a massive setup to get him killed. Pope dies with some important information inside of him that only he knows, so a veteran CIA executive (Gary Oldman) teams up with a scientist (Tommy Lee Jones) who has developed a prototype for taking the thoughts from a dead body and putting them into a living body. Stewart is a perfect brain type match for Pope, so they operate on Jericho, who quickly begins to remember memories from Pope’s past. After escaping from the clutches of the CIA, Jericho realizes that he is on the run from two different special interests groups who seek out the information that Pope once had to do considerable harm to the world. “Criminal” is rated R for strong violence and language.
From an outsiders perspective, “Criminal” seems like can’t-miss action. With an ensemble like this, anything less than exceptional would be a disappointment. What I didn’t expect was just how big of a bomb Vromen’s latest film encases. The movie is presented in such a mundane manor, with illogical script points, as well as laughably bad dialogue and character traits that had me scrambling to find anything good about this garbage. What the film does manage to succeed in in solid action sequences that really don’t spare top dollar to showcase. The problem with this positive is that the movie doesn’t show this off until the final ten minutes of the movie. By then, you are just itching to run towards the exits, and I should know because if it wasn’t for this being my job, I would’ve walked out because my boredom became bored. From the very setup of the movie’s premise, you have to suspend the greatest measure of disbelief. The character of Jericho I will get to more later, but for now I will just say he is utterly unlikeable. This man is one of the most dangerous murderers in the world, who feels no compassion or sympathy to anyone he punishes, and yet the CIA doesn’t feel slightly worried that turning this man loose on society might not be the best idea. They try to explain that the reason he was chosen was because he suffers from a condition that makes him succeptible to this brain surgery. Apparently we should be fine with the fact that they chose a murderer instead of looking for someone else with this disease. I guess the closest option works fine. Besides this, the film repeatedly reminds the audience that Jericho has trouble completing even the slightest task like opening a pill bottle, but has no trouble remembering every detail from a memory in Pope’s past. This kind of structure made it difficult to feel invested even from the beginning.
I mentioned Costner’s Jericho in the last paragraph, so now lets find out what makes him detestable. Once the surgery is completed and Jericho escapes, he treats the world and its people like his own toilet. He berates people who are weaker than him, steals food from honest people, and never stops his killing of innocent people who stand in his way. Doesn’t this guy sound like someone you would love to have as a protagonist for 108 minutes? As a huge fan of Costner, it pains me to say that he simply wasn’t the right casting for this role. Jericho felt like a Nicolas Cage type of character, from laughably bad line reads, to reactions to killing that couldn’t subdue my chuckles. Costner is simply too good for this role and this strange Vin Diesel impression that he sounds like he’s commanding with his voice. Gary Oldmen and Tommy Lee Jones are both wasted in use, and left completely off-screen for long spans of the movie. For a majority of the movie, all we get is Costner and this John Woo era villain (Portrayed by Jordi Molla) who couldn’t be any less interesting if his on-screen name was John Doe. Their back-and-forth exchange left me puzzled on numerous accounts as to who I was rooting for in the game of murderer Vs terrorist. The one solid performance comes from Gal Gadot, and it’s nice to see her get a little more screen time after brief cameos in “Triple 9” and “Batman Vs Superman”. Gadot feels like the only human element to the movie, and she commands her tears effortlessly during many scenes that pit her and her child in danger. Gadot outshines veteran big name actors who simply shouldn’t be anywhere within ten feet of this script.
The film certainly had the ability to take some decent chances with the setup, despite the fact that this is a blatant ripoff of last year’s “Self/Less”. That film wasn’t a crowd pleaser either, but what made it a lot better than Vromen’s muck is that it had heart and took some chances. “Criminal” entirely feels like a predictable mess that never stands up from this paralyzed state of dull cliches. Once you see the attempt at a last second unexplained change in character from our protagonist, the movie’s third act can easily be mapped out. But the fact that I’m already forgetting a lot of what I just witnessed in the last hour, means that “Criminal” robbed me of anything memorable. Like it’s main character, the movie left me emotionless, unforgiving, and struggling to remember any memories from a movie that defines the straight-to-DVD concept.
3/10