neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Matchstick Men
	Ridley Scott Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, Bruce McGill, Bruce Altman 2003		Nicolas Cage is one hell of an actor, and that's no con job. Although he's made his share of stinkers ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin," anyone?), we're talking about the leading man from "Adaptation" and "Leaving Las Vegas." As obsessive-compulsive, agoraphobic con artist Roy in "Matchstick Men," Cage whips out his Oscar-caliber chops. Roy is a symphony of tics, whoops and general anxiety unless he's taken his meds and is perpetrating a swindle with his partner Frank, jocularly played by Sam Rockwell ("Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"). Cage's bravura act is alternately amusing, sad and disturbing, but he's matched, scene after stolen scene, by Alison Lohman ("White Oleander") as Angela, the 14-year-old daughter Roy never knew. Angela appears in Roy's life when he and Frank are about to fleece a mark for a big score. Thrust into a parental role, Roy worries about revealing his business to Angela until she shows a knack for grifting. The film, directed with snap by Ridley Scott ("Black Hawk Down"), is a well-balanced buffet of humor, pathos and chicanery, interspersing the tingles of a crime drama and the tragedy of a dysfunctional family. That extra, special oomph comes from Cage and Lohman.