{"id":86568,"date":"2016-04-21T18:41:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T17:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=86568"},"modified":"2016-04-21T18:41:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T17:41:38","slug":"criminal-film-review-a-capital-offence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/criminal-film-review-a-capital-offence\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal film review: a capital offence?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">CIA agent Bill<b> <\/b><\/span><span class=\"s2\">Pope in London (cue a Ryan Reynolds cameo) is the only person who knows the location of a flash drive containing a programme that can launch the world\u2019s missiles, but he is killed by an anarchist group who are in pursuit of the drive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">CIA boss Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) decides that the only way to get to the flash drive before the terrorists do is to get Tommy Lee Jones\u2019 neurosurgeon to implant Pope\u2019s memories into that of a brain-damaged, emotionless criminal \u2013 Kevin Costner\u2019s ridiculously named Jericho Stewart. Jericho gets all of Pope\u2019s memories \u2013 plus his spy skills and his love for his wife Jill (Gal Gadot) and their daughter.<\/span><span class=\"s2\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The flaw in the plan to put CIA skills in the head of a man with no emotions or moral compass is obvious, and Costner has a whale of a time playing the inappropriate, detached Jericho, who has no qualms about beating up and even killing innocent bystanders. The violence isn\u2019t cartoonish enough, nor are the victims deserving enough for Jericho\u2019s violent streak to be entertaining, which we suspect is the tone the film makers were going for. Instead, it just leaves you feeling queasy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Costner has fun in the lead role, but Oldman and Jones are criminally under-used. Oldman\u2019s lines consist mainly of shouting, while Jones just walks around with permanently sad eyes, although he and Costner at least share one good scene. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The only supporting cast member with more than nothing to do is Gal Gadot, even though all she\u2019s really there for is to aid Jericho\u2019s emotional development and get imperilled. Still, she comes out of the film well, and her performance here bodes well for her <em><strong>Wonder Woman<\/strong><\/em> movie.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The film has some good action sequences, but the plot is weirdly convoluted and it\u2019s hard to forgive the misuse of so many great actors. Worst of all, it\u2019s underdeveloped \u2013 it could have been a lot of fun if they\u2019d spent more time refining plot, character and tone.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can a star-studded cast save crime thriller Criminal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":86569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,8],"tags":[5079],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Criminal-Movie-2016.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}