It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

God awful David Mamet wannabe is so lame, it is truly a shame to see John C. Reilly involved with this giant pigeon droppings of a movie. Everything, and I mean everything about "Criminal" is totally contrived. The film actually is an insult to the audience's intelligence. Stupidity is piled upon stupidity, until an ending that absolutely confirms that essentially you have just wasted 87 minutes. Zero likable characters, zero believable characters, and a script that never should have happened, unless it's purpose was to leave the audience feeling frustrated, annoyed, insulted, and cheated. Definitely one to be avoided, unless you are a glutton for punishment. - MERK

As I scan the many laudatory reviews of this movie posted above, I find myself asking myself just what kind of movies from the past 30 or 40 years these reviewers have been watching, or indeed if they've watched any. No genre ages more quickly and more badly than the "big con" movie, since the whole satisfaction of the viewer hinges on the big final scene - which we know from every "con artist" movie from "The Sting" to Mamet's "House of Games" and which, inevitably, recurs in every familiar detail as the big closing scene of "Criminal" - in which all the characters who have been presented to us throughout the film as having no connection with one another - street-robbers, cops, "mark"s etc. - are revealed - gasp!! - to have secretly been part of some big coordinated scam after all. In a sense, that scene has been "used up" and dramaturgically useless since "The Sting", and all the subsequent "big con" movies of the 80's and 90's, have had to add some very special extra ingredient - such as Mamet's plumbing of the sexual and psychological abysses beneath the "con/mark" relation - in order to be movies of any even limited note. "Criminal" offers no such special angle or special depth and tries to trade on nothing but the - by now hopelessly threadbare - fascination of lives led according to the principle of the double-double-cross and the "nothing is what it seems". Precisely that, however, is the film's psychological downfall in the face of an audience which is - or which one would have assumed ought to be - as familiar by now with the conventions of this genre as it is with those of the mafia movie. The cinema MUST surely have taught us all enough about the lives and work of conmen by now for us to find it ludicrously improbable that either of the two main characters would be willing to expose thousands of dollars of money already "in hand" in order to secure the alleged "sure thing" of a deal that is to net them many thousands more (after all, it is the endemic idiocy of such greed and of the general greed-driven tendency to forget the "bird in the bush" principle that is the very basis of a conman's livelihood). Around this central crying improbability there cluster a dozen others, hardly less egregious: The John C. Reilly character would really have agreed in twenty seconds to the offer of the currency expert not to reveal that the note was a fake in return for a share of the money? Hardly, since it is hard to imagine a simpler way for the mark to find out that the note he was buying WAS indeed a fake than to send the currency expert along with just such an offer? Would he really have permitted any arrangement which might even possibly result in his parting with the note and having in hand, in return, only a CHECK which needed to be taken to a bank and cashed? The idea is ridiculous, since it would clearly involve running the risk of there happening what actually does happen at the bank in the penultimate scene. It seems that filmgoers and DVD-viewers are so desperate for that ever-more-elusive "wow-I-didn't-see-THAT-coming!" kick that large numbers of them are willing, these days, to bring their own willing paralysis of basic cogitative capacities to that "walking dead" genre, the "grifter movie". Well, at least I'll be spared hours of head-shaking incomprehension when I read on here in a couple of months rave review after rave review of a new mafia movie which features a scene in which the rat receives with relief and unconditional enthusiasm the message from the boss: "Sure, I know you helped set up the hit on my kid brother, and I'm not too happy about it. But I really need someone to help me watch out for the arrival of a drugs shipment down at the docks at 3 am tonight, so I'm willing to say: 'let bygones be bygones'. But remember to bring a couple of bags of cement so we both have something to sit on."

This is a film adapted from the 2000 release of an Argentine film called "Nine Queens" or "Nueve Reinas". I won't go into too much detail about the plot of the film, because it's hard to do without spoiling it. What I will say is that if you enjoy films of this genre it's well worth devoting an hour and half to. This a well-paced film that wastes no time in delving right into the meat of it's plot line and doesn't let the viewer lose interest by cluttering things up with unnecessary characters or dialog. John C. Reilly plays the part of a con-man to perfection, though maybe not quite as endearing as Ricardo Darin in the original version, he more than compensates for his lack of likability in this film with his tremendous skill as a dramatic actor. Diego Luna, Reilly's younger, baby-faced accomplice in this film is also very enjoyable. His youthful appearance and polite demeanor were perfect for this role which made his performance as a con-man that much more impressive. The story sticks closely to that of the original, yet somehow lacks the intangible "it" that Nine Queens was able to convey. That in no way means that I didn't still enjoy this film. But, if you do like what you see here, make sure you also check out Nine Queens. 8/10

Actually, I watched this movie to see Diego Luna's acting, and I think it was okay but at the end of this film, it was incredibly interesting!! I could not notice any clue of a big reversal in the end. Wow... it was totally great. I think I'm quite capable of noticing that trick of movies but this time, I completely failed. It is quite interesting to see Jake Gyllenhaal's sister and also interesting tricks of "criminal." This movie is just so great! :D It is just a little bit sad that there are not that many people who know this movie's existence. Give it a try! this movie is really good!!Richard is a cold blooded slicker, and his sister and brother have suffered from his immoral behaviors. And this bears the start of this movie. I will not spoil the main content of the story. Just his interesting and a kind of fabulous tricks turn out to be a blade of a sword threatening him later. And what I am wondering after watching this film is that where Rodrigo learned the tricks to make believe Richard that he is such a capable slicker as much as Richard is. If you watch this movie, you would also be wondering about that part.In my opinion, this movie is one of the best films of Diego Luna(I know that "terminal,the" was good enough too but Diego did not take the main role in that movie as you may know). ;)