Cage a quirky con man in 'Matchstick Men'

Friday, September 12, 2003

By Barry Paris, Post-Gazette Film Critic

Congratulations! It's Frank calling to say you've just won a complete state-of-the-art home water filtration system -- absolutely free, no strings attached! -- which also makes you eligible for one of three fabulous grand prizes: a new car, a diamond ring or a tropical vacation -- GUARANTEED! Sound too good to be true? Well, if you don't believe Frank, here's Roy -- his boss -- to verify and give you the details.

	'Matchstick Men' RATING: PG-13 for language and mild violence STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, Bruce Altman DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott

The details involve a nominal $300 handling/courier charge, on your part, and, on Frank and Roy's part, peeling off that $49.95 price tag from the Wal-Mart gizmo they're gonna deliver.

But Frank and Roy (Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell) are not your garden variety con artists. Far more considerate and creative, they'll send out federal investigators (themselves) to inform you of the scam and give you an even worse follow-up fleecing.

That's our grifters' M.O. in "The Matchstick Men," an intriguing semi-dramatic comedy (pardon the oxymoron) by Ridley Scott. The major comic element, aside from the nature of their swindles, is the nature of Cage's character: Roy is a chain-smoking agoraphobe, whose obsessive-compulsive traits include a terrified fear of lint and a desperate dependence on the placebo pills doled out by his accommodating shrink (Bruce Altman).

It is Dr. Bruce who reveals the semi-dramatic element one day during a therapy session: Roy has a hitherto unknown 14-year-old daughter named Angela (Alison Lohman), who longs to meet the daddy she never knew and soon shows up on his doorstep to move in.

There could be no worse surprise or intrusion in the carefully ordered life of a neurotic thief. As if he weren't dysfunctional enough already! On the other hand, she's rather charming and brings out his latent paternal -- to complement his active larcenous -- instincts.

More to the point, she shows a keen interest and embarks on a promising apprenticeship in his professional work.

The premise, the plot twists and the performances all energize "Matchstick Men," which is quite a departure from Scott's previous films. We know him as the brilliant if painfully serious director of "Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down." Here, he must summon a quirky lightheartedness never exhibited before, and does so.

The same might be said for Cage, who is not my favorite actor but whose assemblage of tics, twitches and Tourette's outbursts achieves tour-de-force proportions in this role. Rockwell is excellent in support, and young Lohman -- with her single strand of orthodontic braces -- is, as noted, a charmer. Together, they comprise a kind of latter-day "Paper Moon" combo.

Ridley Scott is no Peter Bogdanovich, and his seriocomic effort -- dependent as it is on Nicholas and Ted Griffin's convoluted screenplay -- is too plotty. But flaws notwithstanding, "Matchstick Men" is original and entertaining to the end.

Barry Paris can be reached at 412-263-3859.

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