Criminal (2016)

Director: Ariel Vromen

Writers: Douglas Cook, David Weisberg

Composers: Brian Tyler, Keith Power

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Alice Eve, Kevin Costner, Antje Traue, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Scott Adkins, Michael Pitt, Colin Salmon, Natalie Burn, Robert Davi

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The CIA's last hope is in the mind of a criminal

Plot: The memories & skills of a deceased CIA agent are implanted into an unpredictable and dangerous convict.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

I just got back from seeing an advance screening of this courtesy of Carmike Theaters (free tickets, yay!).  I didn't know anything about it except seeing the top cast list.  The premise sounds silly (and now that I read the plot and tagline on IMDb it looks REALLY ridiculous) but they do a quick and good enough job in giving an explanation on how it's possible.  In reality it's a bunch of horseshit but it works well enough in the film to not tax your suspension of disbelief.  To help that along, the cast is great.  I REALLY dig Costner in this.  It's great seeing him as a psycho killer but he's more of a soon-to-be-reformed psycho killer.  He's really a lot of fun and he's got the only moments of humor in the picture.  Tommy Lee Jones is always a hoot but he doesn't get as much screen time as you'd like.  The same can be said for Ryan Reynolds and Gary Oldman.  I finally got to see Gal Godot in something for more than five minutes and she does a fine job.  It's almost entirely filmed in London and they do a nice job of taking us all around the city.  There's plenty of action and tension to keep things going until the very end.  I can totally see how people will think the last scene could be bullshit but if you think about what Jericho has done, it makes it a lot easier to digest.  Costner fans are going to have a blast with this picture.  Mrs. Scorethefilm and I were very pleasantly surprised at how good it was all the way through.  This comes out in a couple of weeks and I fear that it'll get buried by some blockbusters.  It deserves better.  It's a good picture and if you like the cast, I think you should see it.  It probably won't make anyone's future classic list but it's a fine film with fine performances and a sense of fun that makes this an entertaining 113 minutes (which FLEW by).