Matchstick Men

This time we have Matchstick Men. Starring are Nicolas Cage as Roy Waller and Sam Rockwell as Frank Mercer a pair of con artists with the former suffering from several mental disorders which Cage plays well clearly experienced at playing the insanity role from the cocaine scenes back when he did Bad Lieutenant.

Other than good acting from the starring pair and Alison Lohman who comes into it later as a girl called Angela (I'll say no more to avoid spoilers) there is also what has been written up by the makers. The characters are likeable for all their traits and quirks and the movie itself has a pretty decent storyline to it as well.

In fact just about everyone involved in this film seems to have done their job well. The directing by Ridley Scott is as good as he always is in the mass of films that he's worked on, the music was well chosen as well by man named Hans Zimmer which after looking at everything else he's done doesn't surprise me.

So you've got good camera, good sound, good acting, good character and a good story so shouldn't that all come together to make a perfect film? Sadly not. There are some points in the movie where it falls down and a couple of other actors who aren't as talented as the main few who even have a couple of points such as Angela's crying (not a spoiler) which doesn't seem that real to me. There is also the couple of points where special effects are used that they aren't very well done and at least one point in the movie makes no sense whatsoever in having the shot at all as it goes against the story though I doubt you'll even notice it.

There is also that aside from Roy there doesn't really seem to be anything about the other characters to make them stand out that much as interesting. Yes they're likeable but I still struggled to make myself care about what happens to them or to keep myself interested when the scenes don't have Roy in them which has left me not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing how heavily it focuses on him.

My final point is that while I haven't personally seen another film like this it still doesn't do anything new and exciting to make it stand out. It still has that "run of the mill everyday movie that you'll see dozens of each year" feel to it. While by no means is it a bad film I don't think that there is anything special about it. Personally and quite easily justifiable unbiased would be that it does nothing that wasn't done better in Ocean's Eleven and even the sequels Twelve and Thirteen were better movies.

Overally if you have two hours of time on your hands you could do a hell of a lot worse but you wouldn't be hard pressed to find something better. I think if you thought that Ocean's Eleven was too over the top and unrealistic then this is more the film for you.

Personal Score: 6/10
Unbiased Score: 6.5/10