Mente Criminosa

"You hurt me…I hurt you worse." Jericho (Kevin Costner)

Costner is the titular bad guy, who is implanted with the memory of deceased CIA operative, Bill Pope (Ryan Gosling—don't expect to see much of him as he dies early), and spends the better part of Criminal dealing with emotions new to him. It's a film rife with clichés but engaging largely because Costner is believable as a monster turned humanist. And the supporting cast is first-rate.

While this thriller is rife with electronics ( the bad guy has hacked into the USA's military computer system), the humanism is what strikes me as satisfying: not just Jericho's assuming Pope's affections but also Gary Oldman's CIA officer, Quaker Wells, sliding into a rage and Jordi Malla's head terrorist, Xavier, just being cool. I also must acknowledge that the growing affection between Jericho and Pope's widow, Jill (Gal Gadot), is believable if not just as improbable as their planting her deceased husband's thoughts and memories in Jericho.

In thrillers like Criminal, we've seen before the action sequences with vulnerable helicopters, racing cop cars, and ominous computer screens. What we haven't seen much of is a bad-boy hero who captures our sympathy immediately so that we care what happens to him regardless of the mayhem he causes in his journey. Costner has the stature and mien to carry this ambiguous hero right into our hearts.

"You don't remember me but I remember you," says young daughter, Emma Pope (Lara Decaro). Out of the mouths of babes come wisdom and the hope of love for a soulless murderer whose life is transformed by modern technology. Who would have thought technology could grant humanity? Besides, it's fun.

This film is a perfect example of why movie critics are completely irrelevant. Solid acting, well paced, an interesting story (while somwhat implausible) with relatable character dynamics, and of course Costner is great ... so why the Metacritic score of 36? WTF? It's at the point where I'll take the User opinions over the critics every damn time, because clearly there's some underlying bias that comes with being a professional critic of something as subjective as filmmaking. Is it Costner? Is that it? Because they roundly hated "3000 Miles To Graceland" too, another fun movie which may not be Oscar worthy, but nevertheless. And there are definitely some Costner duds out there (Waterworld, The Postman), but I can tell you this, I would watch "Criminal" 100 times before I'd ever force myself to watch "Nomadland" again!

This film has been saved by its stars: Ryan Reynolds first and Kevin Costner few minutes later will make you forget most of plot's unbelievable logical holes, awful editing (what's Alice Eve's end?), repetitive scenes and complete lack of bad guy's motive (Jordi Mollà).

And Tommy Lee Jones, Gal Gadot, Gary Oldman and Michael Pitt (Alice Eve here is little more than an extra) strive to fill with workmanship and dignity their otherwise gaunt supporting roles.

They all succeed in saving the day and in the end you won't fall asleep or leave theater in contempt. But on your way home you could probably comment that this is one of the most useless (or unconvincing) films you ever watched.

I often feel people are far to critical of some movies, this would fall into that category. Solid action thriller, good cast, good action and a few comical lines. Ignore the low ratings!

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Criminal" (2016) is kinda "been there saw that" type of flick - nothing original, nothing super exciting, but as a one evening guilty pleasure it does it's job, at least partly.

The cast is superb, and everyone did their OK jobs for the material, except for Tommy Lee Jones - this is "you got to be kidding me" type of performance - he goes with one facial expression during whole flick, expression that says "what am i doing here? what is this thing?".

Overall, nice execution and OK story with some fun acting makes this flick work for one boring evening. There is even some descent music in it, the one in the van and the one at very end - closing song was great.