CRIMINAL (2016) Review
Directed by Ariel Vromen
When you see the names Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Alice Eve and Gal Gadot on the poster of the film you’re about to see, you kinda get excited about it and it’s an action movie so you’ll probably be entertained by the film even though the story might just be generic. But Criminal just can’t make things suspenseful as it wants to be and that is the overall appeal of the film.
The film makes its stars look uninteresting that everything just seems boring. It’s ambitious, pretentious and mind-numbing that none of it makes sense. The plot is interesting but how they wanted to make the story move forward is going nowhere on purpose. Its uninteresting pieces take the fun and tension the film could have had especially with actors that are capable of bringing what’s needed to the table.
They probably needed the star pull of Ryan Reynolds even if he has only like 10 minutes screen time, because the film has the potential to be a compelling sci-fi flick but everything it does is just generic and boring. We feel Kevin Coster’s headache in the film because we tried hard enough to make something out of it, but there’s almost none.
1.5 OUT OF 5 STARS
“Criminal” is now showing in Philippine cinemas from Octoarts Films International. Rated R-13 by the MTRCB.