“You hurt me, I hurt you worse.”

That’s the creed that savage convict Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner) lives by and boy does he ever mean it.  Mean being the operative word, as this actioner is a good deal more bloody and violent than the usual similar fair we get these days.  As far as I am concerned, that’s a good thing.

Criminal opens with a CIA agent named Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) in London and en route to complete a trade off with a mysterious hacker named Jan Stroop (Michael Pitt), who goes by the handle “The Dutchman”.  It seems that, under the guidance of a political radicalist named Heimbahl (Jordi Molla), Stroop has taken control of a special U.S. defense program.  He now has the sole ability to launch U.S. missiles at any target at the drop of a hat and no one can stop him.  Lucky for us, Stroop had a change of heart and has betrayed Heimbahl.

Pope’s goal is to pay Stroop for the access and offer him safe haven in America.  Unfortunately for Pope, he gets intercepted by Heimbahl’s people before he can complete his mission.  After refusing to give him Stroop’s location during torture, Pope is killed.  For Pope’s boss, Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman), all hope appears to be lost.  Not only do they still not control the missile defense system, but they have no clue as to where Pope had hidden Stroop.  As always, this is when someone has an idea to try a radical, government-funded program.

Enter Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones), a scientist who has been experimenting with the transference of memories from dead mammals to live ones.  Naturally he’s yet to try this on a human, but the government doesn’t care.  They want Pope’s memories placed into the brain of a suitable candidate, so Franks chooses death row convict Jericho Stewart.  Stewart is a violent, nominally intelligent sociopath with no sense of remorse or empathy.  Simply put, he’s a murderous dirtbag.

Stewart received head trauma as a child when his father intentionally tossed him out the window of a moving car, causing his frontal lobe to not develop like it should.  This rare brain defect makes him an ideal candidate for the experiment and he’s forced against his will to participate.  This film wouldn’t be half as much fun if the experiment didn’t work, so obviously Pope’s memories take hold, but not full-time.  At least half, if not 75%, of the time, Jericho is still a mean, somewhat dumb, murderous sonuvabitch.

Imagine, if you will, a half-as-intelligent and half-as-humane Napoleon Wilson (from John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13) being injected with the memories and emotions of Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan.  That should give you the gamut that Jericho is running intellectually and emotionally throughout the film.  Because Pope’s memory are only triggered by sensory stimuli, Jericho slowly finds himself retracing the man’s steps, including interacting with Bill’s widowed wife, Jillian (Gal Gadot), and daughter Emma.  At first the interactions are scary for both parties, but eventually both come to care for one another in their own odd ways.  After all, it’s not as if things like this happen every day.

The plot is fairly straight-forward and lacks over-complicated twists and turns, so don’t go in expecting stuff to come flying in out of left field.  You can probably guess that Jericho eventually comes to not only understand the importance of the mission, but of Pope’s family as well.  You can probably guess that they are eventually put in harm’s way by the villain and Jericho is, for the first time in his selfish existence, forced to put the lives of others before his own.  You’re right on all counts, but the entertainment comes from the journey, not the story itself.

Costner is the real star here, chewing scenery left and right more than he has in any film since at least Mr. Brooks.  He’s so pissed at what’s going on around him at times that he outright growls, both at the situations he is placed into and the fact that he has someone else living inside his head.  When the Bill Pope side comes out he can be empathetic and even touching.  The Jericho Stewart side always remains to a degree, however, and it springs forth in a variety of brutal ways throughout.  He slits throats, burns people alive, bashes them to death with blunt objects, etc.  Our “hero” is not a nice guy.

Gary Oldman puts forth his usual mentor-ish good guy effort here and he is backed by a nice supporting cast comprised of Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness), Amaury Nolasco (“Prison Break”), and B-movie action star Scott Adkins (Undisputed 2-4).  The former two sadly aren’t given much to do at all, but Adkins surprisingly ISN’T positioned as a fisticuffing goon.  Instead, he’s given what I like to call the mid-‘90s Michael Biehn role: standing around in the office of the good guys spouting off exposition and reacting angrily when things don’t go their way.  By god, the man’s only job is this is acting and he’s pretty solid at it.  This might disappoint fans who were looking for some flying foot action, but I’m sure he relished the opportunity to just be an actor this time ‘round.

Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t dish out much energy in his performance, for what was likely just a paycheck gig for him between directorial efforts.  That said, he doesn’t phone it in either, giving just enough nuance at times.  Pitt sadly isn’t given much to work with, mostly just sitting around freaking out, but at least he does a good job of it.  Gal Gadot probably could have used a bit more to work with, but her scenes are given enough emotion and agency to not make her the usual widowed wife caricature that we tend to receive in films of this type.

Molla is surprisingly playing against type here as well.  Instead of giving a sweaty, coked-out performance along the lines of his turns in Blow and Bad Boys 2, here he comes off as a mostly proper and occasionally bookish adversary.  The dirty work is left to his lover/henchwoman, who is played by Antje Traue (Man of Steel).  As for Reynolds, he’s pretty much around to be instantly likable and then killed off.  It might be a cheap way to get audiences to buy into the flashbacks and family interactions later on as Pope’s memories flood into Jericho’s brain, but it mostly works.

If this came out in the mid-‘80s, it probably would have had stronger sci-fi elements.  Hell, it might have even been directed by someone like Jack Sholder, Stephen Hopkins, or Renny Harlin.  Maybe even John Carpenter.  It has a bit of that vibe, both in its characters and the overall mean streak running through the center of the film.  Hell, it even has a synth-ish score, courtesy of Brian Tyler and Keith Powers.  Given the lack of mid-budget films these days and a stronger push for name actors than for special FX in such films, those elements are played down.  They are there, however, and help set this film a little bit apart from the usual Millennium Films (who produced this) and EuropaCorp action fare.

In addition to feeling rather trope-y, it’s that modern action look and feel that really weighs it down.  Ariel Vromen’s (The Iceman) direction isn’t sloppy like efforts of Olivier Megaton (Taken 2&3), but it is rather middle-of-the-road when it comes to films of this nature.  The action is usually coherent and there are occasionally interesting visual flares at work, but on the whole this could have used a director with a bit more style.

Of all the levels to enjoy it on, I had the most fun with it as a Costner fan.  I don’t know about the majority of you, but I’ve always liked the guy as an actor.  He doesn’t always pick the best films to star in these days, but even when a movie is a dude, he’s usually giving an interesting performance within it.  As a result, I can find a lot to like within films like Mr. Brooks, The New Daughter, 3 Days to Kill, and yes, even the bonkers ride that is 3000 Miles to Graceland.  This film might not be a classic Revenge and Open Range or a tasty piece of cult trash like Waterworld, but it is still pretty entertaining.

Criminal isn’t the kind of film that is going to wow anyone, be they a big action fan or just a regular audience member looking for some popcorn entertainment.  The story isn’t that original and the execution is pretty typical for similar modern efforts, but the performances (particularly Costner) are enough to get the job done.  If you’re looking for something better made than the dreadful Megaton films we keep getting subjected to or with a bit more oomph than even some of Liam Neeson’s more recent efforts, you’ll likely have some fun with this one.

If what I’ve written about (at length) above doesn’t stir some interest within you, well, then you should still know where you will stand with this one.  This is the first action movie review that I have written for this site and it will not be the last, but it should give you an idea as what tends to get my engine running with these kinds of films.  We still seem to get quite a few of them these days, so let’s collectively hope that most of them continue to be as watchable as (if not better than) Criminal.  And also that Costner continues to make more of them now and again!