MOVIE REVIEW: Life of Crime

Untitled Elmore Leonard2333.NEF

Untitled Elmore Leonard2333.NEF

Published Jul 10, 2015

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LIFE OF CRIME

DIRECTOR: Daniel Schechter

CAST: John Hawkes, Yasiin Bey, Tim Robbins, Jennifer Aniston, Isla Fisher, Will Forte, Clea Lewis and Mark Boone jr

CLASSIFICATION: 16 LVS

RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes

RATING: ***

An Elmore Leonard adaptation with less snap-and-crackle than usual, Schechter’s Life of Crime starts promisingly and ends with a smile, but underwhelms in between. Though very far from the worst film to be made from his work, the kidnapping-gone-wrong yarn lacks the sex appeal of Out of Sight, the streetwise staying power of Jackie Brown, the tight-quarters tension of 1957’s 3:10 to Yuma. It will attract attention at the box office for its marquee cast and pedigree, but a Get Shorty success is out of the question.

Hawkes and Bey play Louis and Ordell, two small-time crooks (played by Robert De Niro and Samuel L Jackson in Jackie Brown) who’ve learnt that Detroit businessman Frank Taylor (Robbins, perfectly cast as a 1978 country-club boor) has been stashing ill-gotten gains in an offshore bank account. While he’s on one of many visits to the Bahamas, they decide to kidnap his wife, Mickey (Aniston), and demand $1 million for her safe return.

What Louis and Ordell’s spies failed to tell them is that, on all his trips to the islands, Frank shacks up with the same woman. In fact, he plans to marry this girl, Melanie (Fisher), and has timed a divorce filing to surprise Mickey while he’s out of town. Under the circumstances, he’s less eager to part with his illicit nest egg than the average loving husband.

And that’s almost as twisty as Schechter’s screenplay gets. Yes, there are some hiccups – a family friend with designs on Mickey (Forte) nearly derails the kidnapping; a Nazi-fetishising accomplice (Boone jr) can’t be trusted to guard the hostage without ogling her – but these problems are self-contained, not generating tension or leading to others.

They also don’t do much to exploit the comic value usually offered by Leonard’s not-so-bad bad guys. The fellas didn’t think their plan through, true. But while Bey and Hawkes have fine chemistry, the script doesn’t give them enough to work with, outside of some jabs at their racist, unwashed collaborator. The most involving angle is Louis’s growing sympathy for Mickey, who while waiting to be ransomed is learning her predicament might not be her biggest problem. The two have some enjoyably frank encounters as the film progresses, scenes that nearly make this incarnation of the Louis character one worth admitting to the Leonard pantheon.

Tech values are solid, heavy on the credibly ugly ’70s threads, though The Newton Brothers’ score is occasionally too authentic – calling to mind an era of over-lit, wide-lapel crime films that were rarely as fun as they promised. – The Hollywood Reporter

If you liked A Life Less Ordinary or The Candy Snatchers you’ll like this.

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