Matchstick Men (2003)

Touches You

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Nicholas Cage plays truly one of his best performances of his carreer. One of his last best too, because since the man has gotten several divorces behind him, he nowadays only acts in mediocre movies to pay alimony to his ex wives. But fortunately we can admire Cage in one of his last superb acting roles in "Matchstick Men".Nicholas Cage plays a con man who deprives naive, and vulnerable people of their money with smart con tricks. Besides stealing people's money Cage's character has an obsessive compulsive disorder, which can be described as a mentally disturbing need to obsessively clean his house from dusk till dawn. He lives his life secluded until he finds out he has got a daughter from a previous marriage. Will he quit his criminal con men work to take care of his daughter or will he continue to live a secluded con man life?Ridley Scott is mostly known for his blockbuster action movies. This movie is none of that, on the contrary it is a real clever con men story. And the acting in it is superb. I must confess that I was stunned to read that Ridley Scott directed this movie, because this director only minimally directs his actors, which makes the acting in "Matchstick Men" even more impressive. Smooth, enticing, endearing, funny and suspenseful. But most of all this is truly a very smart story. Often those smart plots are only fun to watch for just one time, but "Matchstick Men" has become a classic con men movie that has stood the test of time. I have watched it over 5 times, know exactly who gets conned by who and I still love it so much. The true to life endearing characters are to thank for that. Great acting. Great story. Con men classic.

I think for most viewers, you'll either like this flick or hate it. I'm still trying to resolve my feeling over the way the con played out against Roy Waller by the time it was all over. That's not to say I'm expressing sympathy for Nicolas Cage's character, he was a serial extortionist and con man who deserved what he got, but I felt huge betrayal on the part of his partner Frank Mercer (Sam Rockwell), and just about as much for the phony 'daughter' Angela (Alison Lohman). You really have to be pathological to do what those two did to Waller, not to mention the psychiatrist Dr. Klein (Bruce Altman). Now that I think about it, maybe he wasn't even a psychiatrist at all, and just another con artist with a good line analyzing Roy Waller. But then the picture took it a step further with a contrived ending in which Waller gets to confront Angela a year later. Like he was really going to go straight and sell carpeting for a living, yeah right. The dynamic between himself and Angela at that point was entirely not credible. So if the intent of the film makers was to con the viewer, I guess it worked, because I felt like I was bilked out of a million dollars myself, not to mention a couple of hours viewing time.

This might be the answer to all of Nicholas Cage's detractors who dislike his overacting and bursts of madness. He seems the perfect actor to play Roy, a conman who has a severe case of OCD. Cage adds to his portrayals a strong range of facial tics, stutters and uncontrollable bursts of emotions - sometimes matching those of his newly discovered teenage daughter. More immediately striking is the visual techniques that Ridley Scott employs to heighten his sense of paraonia and loss of control - speeding up and slowing down footage, rewinding the surrounding events, chopping up the soundtrack. When Roy goes through his usual obsessive ritual of counting the locks on his door, Ridley responds with 3 successive cuts to show how gingerly he screens the people entering his home. As he struggles to find more placebo pills on the phone, the cuts jump from side to side erratically as his anxiety builds. And when he wakes up after a nasty hit to the head, the frame is flattened and compressed to suit his POV. He and his partner Roy are smooth operators. They slip seamlessly into their roles over the phone; able to imagine and fabricate whole offices and businesses and co-workers with only their words. I am reminded of similar ability in the characters of Glengarry Glen Ross. Angela is also a great little actress, although we do not know it yet - moody, depressive, upbeat and teasing all rolled into one. The relationship is sweet beyond the long term implications of Roy's career, so naturally we begin to root for them to succeed. Roy shares this new joy of his with the targeted victim for the pigeon drop, exchanging those chuckling anecdotes that a loving father would. But we do begin to question whether he pulls it off so well because he is a veteran conman, or if it is because he is truly warming up to Angela. .Many have expressed discontentment at the rather tame ending. Perhaps they'd like Roy to unload on Angela and yell at her for conning him like hat. I think it's perfectly wrapped up; anger won't change what already happened, and he realises that he is now at peace with his ordinary life and happier than he ever was as a conman. That's about as far as the screenplay really reaches for. Besides the plot holes and conveniences that I'm sure everyone will be quick to point out, it's a bit presumptuous to simply assume that with a more stable life that his OCD would suddenly be resolved like some neat plot point. And again with the supermarket cashier, who doesn't really add anything of note except to symbolise his now happier life. But apart from all this, it's an enjoyable enough film.

Roy, a veteran con man, has a new protégé working with him, Frank. The duo has just planed the biggest con of their careers: selling a water filtration system, by which they ask for a price ten times higher than its true value, But unfortunately Roy has a problem that threatens his crime life, he suffers from agoraphobia and has to be addressed urgently. Shortly after starting the therapy sessions, Roy discovers he has a teenage daughter and she is interested in following his footsteps.I was surprised, i did not expect this movie to be so good, excellent performance by Nicolas Cage in what is easily one of his best films, it is difficult to talk about the film without spoiling it for you, but i didn't find it very confusing i guess you have to be very focus to understand the movie in its entirety, as for the twist i really didn't see it coming. Of Course i recommend it. My vote is 8.Title (Portugal) - "Amigos do Alheio" ("Friends Of someone else")