Matchstick Men - It's a Con

my rating: Nathan's rating:

The advertisements make Matchstick Men look like a quirky character study featuring the inimitable Nicolas Cage as an obsessive-compulsive con artist, blended with a wryly heartwarming tale of his reunion with his 14-year-old daughter and protegé played by Alison Lohman. And the move starts by providing first the character study, and then the heartwarming tale. But then it reveals itself to be a different kind of movie altogether, as quirkiness and charm are overshadowed by... well, that would be telling.

That coyness might make this sound like another The Crying Game or an M. Night Shyamalan film, but rest assured that it is not. This isn't a shocker or a mystery. It's a con. {grin}

This role is the kind that Cage is perfect for, because the character is so damn neurotic, and speaking as a man with a neurosis or two myself, I would say that he gets it down perfectly. He goes a bit over the top, and that's what the part calls for. But he does a great job of "dialing it down" as needed, and you can tell when Roy is having a good day or a bad day, depending on just how badly he reacts to - for example - shoes on his carpet, or a partially open window.

Nathan was lukewarm about the film, complaining that it was kinda slow starting out (referring to the character-study part), which is true. And it took a little discussion between the two of us, with me explaining exactly how the con worked, before he decided that he liked it.