I was pleasantly surprised by the film Life of Crime. Initially one I wanted to see during my “year of movies” last year, I missed it and so had to settle for the rental. It’s a decent film about a bungled crime that doesn’t go the way it was planned.
Ordell (Mos Def) and Louis (John Hawkes) are a couple of two bit criminals, who hatch a plot to kidnap socialite Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston) for ransom from her husband Frank (Tim Robbins). Unfortunately for them, Frank was in the midst of serving Mickey divorce papers, and decides he doesn’t want her back anyway, and is cozy with his new girlfriend Melanie (Isla Fisher). Ordell and Louis are stuck holding Mickey in a Nazi-memorabilia collector’s house, trying to keep him from peeping in on Mickey, while still hoping to collect some kind of money.
It’s a pretty clever film and downright funny at times. Plot twists abound, right up to the very end of the film. The acting is solid with quite a list of A-listers as mentioned, and also includes Mark Boone Junior of Sons of Anarchy fame and SNL’s Will Forte. My only knock is Aniston’s role didn’t allow her to show her spunky side, making her character pretty one dimensional and rote, but the others were all great. The film was based on a book by Elmore Leonard. Well worth a rental or a dvr.
Jons Movie Takes 