Matchstick Men
Never an especially sentimental filmmaker, director Ridley Scott goes all gooey in this off-key adaptation of Eric Garcia's cynical novel, ''Matchstick Men.'' It's the story of two con men, Roy (Nicolas Cage) and Frankie (Sam Rockwell), and the sudden appearance of a teenage girl (Alison Lohman) claiming to be the daughter Roy never knew he had. Garcia's novel was uneven but entertaining, with a real flair for the seedy details of the grifter's life. Most of all, Garcia pulled an inspired con on his reading audience with a devastating twist that was as bitter as it was delicious. That conclusion must have given Scott and screenwriter Nicholas Griffin the vapors because here they tenderize it with a year-later epilogue that's as improbable as it is unsatisfying. There's no reason for it, except for the simplistic notion that film audiences are too unsophisticated to settle for anything less than a happy ending.
Not that the movie is on such sure footing before the last reel. It starts fine enough with Frankie, an Oscar Madison to Roy's Felix Unger, trying to sell an unsuspecting woman a water filtration system well above its $49.99 price. It's a small con, but you can tell Frankie breathes this stuff. It's in his eyes, in his smile -- he's about to bag another sucker.
Soon, however, we must contend with Roy, or more precisely, Cage's performance as a man suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He goes on maniacal cleaning binges and must open and close every door three times. Little wonder Cage wanted the role. He's all tics and twitches, and frankly, it looks like just about every other over-the-top role -- ''Bringing Out the Dead,'' ''Snake Eyes,'' take your pick -- he's played since winning the Academy Award for ''Leaving Las Vegas'' in 1996.
When Roy's problems threaten to derail his criminal activities, Frankie sends him to a therapist, Dr. Klein (Bruce Altman). Eager to get to the source of Roy's anxieties, Klein discovers that Roy split with his former wife when she was pregnant with their child. Klein convinces Roy that he may have a child out there, and soon helps introduce him to Angela (Lohman). Roy, who can barely take care of himself, is soon trying to be a responsible father to this wise-beyond-her-years 14-year-old.
As in the book, Roy slides too quickly into the role of doting father -- shouldn't a seasoned con man be even a little skeptical? At the same time, Frankie is setting up a super-scam that will make your head explode if you try to figure it out.
Rockwell is a hoot as Frankie, but during the stretches when he's not on screen, the air goes out of the film. Lohman, almost 10 years older than Angela, makes a convincing teenager. But there's too much Cage, who's more irritating than interesting, which could also be said about this defanged film.
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