Matchstick Men

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Lynn Ann Leveridge, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, Bruce Altman

Directed by: Ridley Scott

RS: 2of 4 Stars

2003 Drama

In Matchstick Men, Nicolas Cage plays an obsessive-compulsive con man, apparently under the theory that if you combine two movie cliches, they somehow start to seem original. The twist is that Cage's long-lost daughter shows up; the nontwist is that, as in all con-man movies, the person being conned turns out to be someone different from whom you thought it was. Not exactly the freshest idea in the world, but it beats watching Nic Cage clean his furniture with a toothbrush.

TOM NAWROCKI
(February 11, 2004)