Matchstick Men

Pros: Nicolas Cage’s performance
Cons: Makes light of serious things at times

I first started to see previews for Matchstick Men earlier this summer. I can’t remember which movies I was seeing at the time, but I ended up seeing the preview for Matchstick Men several times. Then the ads started on telev ...

Pros: Story, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Score
Cons: This genre needs more good films like this!

Matchstick Men (2003) Ridley Scott may be our greatest living director. A man who has made superb films of many genres - science fiction (Alien, Blade Runner) to buddy films (...

Pros: Cage, Lohman, the twists and turns. The soundtrack.
Cons: Well, if you pay very close attention you can figure out the truth.

There's a certain mystique to the films that involve scamming. You never, ever, want it to happen to you personally, but sometimes it is great fun to sit and watch it as entertainment. Meet Frank (Sam Rockwell) and Roy (Nicolas Cage), two small time ...

Pros: Warm. Fun. Quick twists. Grab on for the ride.
Cons: Someone needs to slap the person who added that lame ending.

Con men don’t look like wooly buggers. If they did, then they wouldn’t be able to pull cons. If you don’t know any con men (but you probably do even if you don’t know what they do on the side), then you’d likely find that you enjoy the company of those ...

Pros: Everything was well done.
Cons: An abrupt pace shift; lack of personal connection for me.

Matchstick Men engagingly mixes two seemingly incompatible cinematic genres, the family bonding pic and the heist movie. Director Ridley Scott adapts Eric Garcia's story of a quirky con artist (Nicolas Cage) whose relatively normal professional ...

Pros: Bruce Altman, Nicolas Cage, Sheila Kelley, Alison Lohman, Bruce McGill, and Sam Rockwell.
Cons: None.

M atchstick Men, $9.49 US, is a widescreen DVD adapted from the Eric Garcia novel of the same name. The movie stars ...

Pros: Performances; Ridley Scott's direction.
Cons: Not too original a plot.

Matchstick Men is not at all the movie I expected it to be. Seeing the posters and what not, I was thinking, "Whoa, dude. I bet it's like, a drama or something where this guy reconnects with his lost teenage daughter and stuff." Then I saw ...

Pros: good acting, plot twists
Cons: A few points may be unbelievable but the movie still works.

I found Matchstick Men in our movie cabinet the other day. It had been given to use and had sat there unwatched due to its PG-13 rating (for thematic elements, violence, some sexual content and language) until I forgot about it. For obvious ...

Pros: Excellent script, direction, ensemble-acting, and character development. Fabulous plot-twist!
Cons: Fairytale, feel-good, hollywood-type, happy-ending

Con-artist movies are almost as old as Hollywood itself. Most have taken a light-hearted and sometimes romanticized approach to the subject - and for the most part Matchstick Men is no exception to that general rule, including the obligatory ...

Pros: Decent Acting, Interesting Characters, Not a bad story
Cons: REAL predictable for anyone with a brain who is awake

There's a single detail, early in the movie "Matchstick Men" that makes the movie dreadfully obvious and predictable. It's a simple detail and were I to reveal it here in my review, it would not ruin the movie for most people. Still, I won't give it ...

Pros: great acting, amazing plot, funny
Cons: none!

I saw this movie when it first got to theaters, and I am very surprised that it didn't get too much media attention. This is actually one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. This is a true movie about the "art of conning." It is extremely ...

Pros: Whatever genre you like, there will be something for you here.
Cons: Suffered from an unfortunate title and poor marketing.

You wouldn't think that Nicholas Cage and the relatively unknown Alison Lohman would in many ways surpass the classic Paper Moon but this film does that. Paper Moon relied almost entirely on chemistry between Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. Matchstick Men ...

Pros: A slight noir-ish effect to the film which helps
Cons: Occasional plot contrivances lacking in orginality

I wasn’t unsure of what to expect from Matchstick Men. I read a couple of reviews…saw the previews and was somewhat pleasantly surprised. For once the previews didn’t give away the movie which was good. The movie made it more look like a film about the ...

Pros: Cage's acting is extremely impressive, the plot is original with unexpected twist.
Cons: The ending is slightly a cop-out.

Never advertised hugely in Britain, I stumbled across Matchstick Men on a Blockbuster shelf. Expecting a mediocre story line and performance, I was instead highly impressed.

Cage's performance was fantastic, completely convincing, and without which the movie may have not worked half as well. That the other actors were not of high status allowed the movie some authenticity, as we were not side-tracked by any hollywood stars.

The plot was original and the movie seemed sleek and trendy without the hollywood glitz. The twist in the plot was completely unexpected, but was not so subtle or fast-paced that it left the audience wondering what had happened.

However, the ending was slightly cheesy and did not flow with the tone of the entire movie. A slightly easy-option out, but still a satisfying watch.

Pros: Excellent acting
Cons: none worth mentioning

I went to see this film with completely different expectations than what I got.
But that's not a bad thing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how well this story was woven together. Now, at this point you may not want to continue because of spoilers but I will try not to give a synopsis of the movie here.
Nicholas Cage plays an obsessive compulsive con man, Sam Rockwell plays his sidekick. Rockwell, by the way, gives a performance that's completely convincing. You will believe he could charm anyone out of anything.
Alison Lohman plays the girl who stumbles into the con man's life and completely rearranges it.
All of this makes for a nice balance of comedy, drama and the art of conning.
What makes this film so much fun is that in the end, it is the audience who is tricked. Not a tragic, nor a overly happy ending, but one that is discussion worthy well after the film has ended. In fact the way things turn out are for the better, even though you may not think so initially. More than that I don't want to say.