I got to see the advance screening for the movie and it was really good! Here is my review:
“Matchstick Men” was one of the movies that I most anticipated seeing this year. I have always enjoyed Nicholas Cage and Sam Rockwell. With these two working together, the movie had to be great. Cage was brilliant in his role as a con artist with obsessive-compulsive-like phobias. In addition to Cage, Rockwell adds to the comedic aspect of the film. Up-and-coming star Alison Lohman also shines in the film as the daughter of Cage’s character. The relationship between Cage and Lohman is a huge part of the film that makes it funny. Overall, this movie was great and I recommend it to anyone whether they love Cage and Rockwell or not.
Ok, well to address that last post, I think it;s safe to say that anyone who saw this movie can tell ya that the two are NOTHING alike. Not even remotely close.
This bump is just to serve as a notice that "Matchstick Men" was released on DVD today. Naturally, I bought it and already watched it, and was quickly reminded how underappreciated and overlooked the movie truely is.
This film was great, i thought the young actress who played his daughter
just shone. spoiler [SPOILER - highlight to read]: did you guess she was part of the con, it took me a while, i think you didnt need the one year later at the end, it would of been better to see cage looking over the skyline known hes been screwed
I think the movie was decent. It dragged for the first 45 minutes......but payed off in the last half of the movie. It is utterly predictable. My wife isn't the smartest gal in the world (hey, I'm being honest...she's a looker, not a thinker) and even she predicted the end of the film.
Still......I must recommend. Don't let the first half of the movie put you off. I was tempted to turn my dvd player off but fought the urge.....and I'm glad I did.
I must be pretty stupid, because nothing in the movie lent to the fact that his daughter infact wasn't his, nor the fact that all the cons would ultimately get conned themselves.
As for it dragging, it was just building up Nicholas Cage's character, which was without a doubt one of the original characters I have ever seen. Wasn't boring at all to me, and it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
I'm sorry Cinemaddiction..........not saying you're not on the ball or anything but the movie was almost as predictable as S.W.A.T.
Since you already posted a bit of a spoiler......I'm not going to put this in tags.
During the scene where Nick Cage is teaching "his daughter" the lottery ticket con at the laundromat, my wife looked at me and said, "the twist is going to be that she is conning him"..........I then looked at her and said, "no....Frank is conning him, he hired her"......
The dead give away for me that left no doubt in my mind was the fact that he never picked his "daughter" up at her house. She would show up at his car after school (not coming from the school....from the opposite side of the street) and when he dropped her off, she wouldn't let him pull up to the house.
It's still a good movie........maybe me and my wife are just really good at catching twists because we watch so many movies, I don't know.....but it was really predictable for us. Hell, that was part of the fun at the end.......we wanted to see if we were right, and we were.
Yikes. Only part of S.W.A.T. that wasn't predictable was the "all for nothing" street shootout, when the prisoner transfer was underground.
Of course, things being predictable shouldn't stop people from enjoying movies. I like watching movies first, dissecting them later.
As for Matchstick Men, there still wasn't any evidence that Frank and Angela were in cahoots, atleast until the mention of her police record, where he didn't act the least bit surprised. It would be near impossible to guess. Besides, how were we to know that a guy in his mid 30's would have any kind of contact/relationship with a 14 year old?
Actually you can guestimate her age by the end. It is one year later......she has just moved into an apartment with her boyfriend. This means she is atleast 18-19.
It is completely possible that she was 18 the previous year. Frank could have met her in a club.......he could have previously known her (friend/family)......he could have just met a random woman on the street and said, "how would you like to make a lot of money?"
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Jul 9th, 2003 05:27 PM
