Roy (Nicolas Cage) is a con man with an issue. He is an obsessive compulsive (among other things). He has to open and close doors three times (each – although there are a few times that he forgets, which indicates that perhaps it’s all in his head).

Luckily, he has a caring partner in Frank (Sam Rockwell), who helps him remember to take his medicine when he needs to do so, and manages to set up plenty of short cons, where Roy can just walk in and help clean up the mess so that they can rake in some easy, if small, money. Frank just wants to get Roy to make a big hit.

Read the rest of this entry »

The acting in this drama was superb, especially from Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn. I find that as I watch more and more of Tim Robbins, I find that he has his characters nailed (he won an Oscar for his performance here) but they just don’t vary a whole lot. They always have the same off-kilter look, and they each make you wonder what is going on underneath the surface, but there just isn’t a lot of real depth. While I’m not the world’s largest fan of Sean Penn, I was impressed by his role here (he won too, deservedly so).

The thug-like character played by Penn is matched by Bacon’s police persona, and wouldn’t you know it? They knew each other as kids. As it turns out, Tim Robbins rounds at the trio as one of the friends who was abducted and abused one fine day while they were in the middle of some mischief making.

Penn’s character, Jimmy Markum, finds that his daughter is missing, and then that she is dead. Meanwhile, Bacon’s detective, Sean Devine claims the job of trying to figure out who did it – or at least find a reasonable suspect – before Markum uses his contacts to bring someone to justice.

Read the rest of this entry »