Criminal Activities

All the guys proceed well but the actors, including the scene-stealing, acquit themselves quite amusingly, as does director Haley, who also plays one of Travolta's henchmen. Working from a chatty script not as cleverly hatched as it likes to think it is, Haley whips it into something decently entertaining even as you begin thinking about how truly great "Get Shorty" and Travolta's Chili Palmer were midway through those double-crossing criminal activities. Criminal Activities is overall a sneaky, snaky little crime thriller with some pretty impressive plot twists with some stylish touches and committed performances which enliven this otherwise not special crime thriller.

Directed by Jackie Earle Haley, "Criminal Activities" from 2015 is about four high school friends - Zack, Noah, Warren, and Bryce (Michael Pitt, Dan Stevens, Rob Brown, Christopher Abbott, who meet up after the funeral of their friend Matthew.

Warren tells them about a stock that's about to go up - he has insider trading info - and the agent who has been stockpiling the stock is getting nervous about being caught and needs to dump his shares. He wants $200,000. Noah says he can get it.

The stock tanks and wipes out the investment. Unfortunately, Noah neglected to tell him the money came from a mobster, Eddie (John Travolta) and he wants repayment of $400,000 - accrued interest.

He will wipe the slate clean if they will help him with a problem he's having - kidnap the brother of the man who kidnapped his niece so that he can get her back.

Boy could this have been better. It's a complicated story, and a good one, but the script and direction aren't strong enough to carry it. It's similar to many other films of today with its surprises, but at the end of the film I was left confused about certain money issues.

There is an homage to Pulp Fiction with the presence of Travolta and the guys' initial meeting at the Royale. And it has gross violence, just like Tarantino. It's just not Tarantino.

The acting is uneven with some good performances. Travolta does a great job, but earth to Travolta: if you're bald, shave your head and/or wear an expensive hairpiece, and stop looking like a chimpanzee with that hairline. It's so distracting.

The director, Jackie Earle Haley, hands in a good performance, as do Pitt, Edi Gathegi, Pitt, and Stevens.

"Sometimes what looks like a dead end to a dire situation can be an opportunity." After meeting at an old classmates funeral four friends begin to reconnect. When they hatch a plan to play the stock market for a sure thing that will make them all millionaires they jump at the chance. When things go wrong they not only lose their money but they find out that one of them borrowed money from the mob. Now, left with no other choice they must make a deal in order to survive. I love mob movies and was looking forward to this. This is not the type of mob movie I was hoping for. The movies is essentially a kidnapping and little by little more truth is uncovered. The movie isn't that bad and does keep you watching but it was a little slow and not really what I was expecting it to be. The acting is really good, even though it is hard to buy Travolta as a mob boss. This is a decent one time watch movie but nothing all that amazing and nothing I think I would watch again. Overall, good but nothing to scream about. I give this a B.

For all the gritty title and noir poster it has, the better part of Criminal Activity is its satirical attempt on crime genre. The thriller works by introducing subplots while playing out the main story with a lot of twists and turns. While not every narrative pays out, there's a solid acting here and it's pretty exciting to see the diverse characters as they are put in highly volatile situations.

Four young men reunite on the funeral of their friend. After a smoke they are intrigued by an investment opportunity that fails almost immediately. Unfortunately to them the investment is already tied to a mafia and they must do a difficult favor to clean the slate. Their hardship eventually turns into a spiral of dangerous power struggle with kidnapped niece and nephew while agents and assassins chase after them.

It's a deeper premise than it originally shows, creating layers of subplots as it progresses. Some of the sequences are highly entertaining due to their absurdity and good delivery by the actors. Edi Gathegi as the gangster involved in all the shenanigans stands out even among the capable leads of John Travolta and Dan Stevens. There are unexpected outlandish mafia themed narratives, or perhaps slight parody of it, that will deliver chuckle or thrill to audience.

However, even with most of the story manage to be entertaining, the movie tends to overreach. It has plenty of side characters or events that may not be that important yet still get a lot of screen time. It tries to pull off too many tricks that don't resonate better than its core story. Not to mention the twisting revelation at the end feels rather abrupt and might too far fetch, although it's still decent due to the outlandish nature.

Criminal Activity works on parts where the acting and satire are strong, but it does try to overreach with few others distracting stints like a greedy mobster.

No spoilers!

This is a fairly basic Hollywood story of how things take a turn south really fast in peoples lives and keep getting worse by the minute. I've always liked "gangster" movies like this, kinda simple but yet funny characters and unexpected twists you really cannot predict. It's the small things that can make an average movie turn in to a good one and this did that for me. About half of it is just plain average but then things start to happen so don't stop watching.

The writing and characters have clear influences from Tarantinos Pulp Fiction, Guy Ritchie's Snatch(and others) and the ending is quite "Usual Suspect's" type but so what if we've seen it before, it still works. For it's budget I'm happy with what I saw.

Too much of movies these days throw money away in effects and other useless crap, they still haven't learned that a billion dollars worth of effects won't make a bad script good. Save that money Hollywood and make a hundred of these types instead. Put the money towards good writers and casting and that will save you a lot.. and make a better movies at the same time.