Review – Matchstick Men

One of the most instantly fatal things that can ever happen to a movie about con men is when the story becomes predictable. The whole fun of these things is watching the schemes unfold, seeing how the games work, following along with the “matchstick men” as they make their dubious livings. I guess we just have to expect that we aren’t going to get two solid hours of rip-offs in progress, and perhaps I should be grateful that the script at least went with something offbeat: a con man with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Our protagonist (Nicolas Cage) longs for a stable family life, and his attempts to make peace with an estranged daughter don’t make the movie all that much more interesting. But the capper is that you can see the end coming a mile away, and for me at least that just sapped all the enjoyment out of waiting to see how it all turns out. The movie also suffers from Ridley Scott’s extremely self-conscious visuals, which I used to like a lot better than I do now. Mildly amusing