Movies
[Review] ‘Criminal’ Is a Violent, Trashy, Spy-Fi Actioner
“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!
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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