The Italian Job

What's the Plot?

Ray (Nicholas Cage) and Frank (Sam Rockwell) are partners. To the outside world, they're either in antiques or "water filtration systems." Of course, it's all a scam. They are con-men. Or grifters, or matchstick men, whichever you prefer. Ray is the veteran and Frank is his protégé. Small-scale crooks, Frank is desperate for Ray to score one big "sting" so that he can pay off all his debts - like his car re-payments - and start to live free like the money-cautious Ray does. However, Ray chooses to relent to Frank's demands at the wrong time. An obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe, Roy finds himself without his "illegal" medication, sending him into a sort of relapse. Upon finding him, Frank puts him in contact with a psychoanalyst (Bruce Altman) to try and help him get through the "bigcon" and maybe the rest of his life. After his first session, Ray is surprised to learn that he has a 14 year old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman), from his failed marriage. Now, with a teenager thrust into his life, Ray finds himself having to alter everything...maybe even his career if he wants to keep her in his life. Could this be the last con for the veteran con artist, and if so, how will Frank cope without his mentor and partner ?

The Review

From it's hip Dean Martin / Frank Sinatria-esque soundtrack and cool "slide show" edits, you could be forgiven for mistaking Matchstick Men as a film by Steven Spielberg who wanted to make another in the style of his recent cool-fest, Catch Me If You Can. However, this is far from the truth as the man who revels in slightly slow-paced pieces with big budgets and of late, a heavy reliance on special effects, is the one behind the camera for this piece. Ridley Scott - Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator - delves into what is basically unknown territory for him and ends up delivering the goods...but only just.

With it's certain aspects of the storyline and as the plot begins to take turns that are both expected and unexpected, you find yourself in a deja vu scenario with titles such as "Heartbreakers", Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Sting and As Good As It Gets floating to the top of your consciousness. Cage's quirky, tick-infested character - not unlike that of Nicholson's Oscar winning As Good As It Gets - starts off with repeating everything 3 times and as the plot allows him to become more "normal", gets to deliver the kind of character that we would usually expect from him: charming but with an edge. Rockwell, who made impressions with his turns in The Green Mile and Welcome To Collingwood bounces well off of Cage's more sedate performance, especially whilst they're making their small-time cons.

Funnily enough, it's these small-time con that fill the screen with delight; even more so than the proposed "big con"s that, during, and after it's execution, fails to live up to the tension that surrounds it and is what the film really hinges around. With the introduction of the daughter - a stunning performance from Lohman, especially when you find out that she is 24 and not the convincing 14 year old that she plays in real life - the story begins to lean heavily towards another modern classic - Leon - with an adult, reluctantly at first, teaching a minor his "trade." Nice and easy going, Matchstick Men is not as cool as it thinks it is, but in it's defense, it does have a neat ending which cannot be disclosed here. So, go see and judge for yourself.

STEVE'S SCORE