Insufferable boring mess

Rating: 1/10 (23 January 2014)

There is a minor joke in the first 30 seconds (which goes on for another couple of minutes), then this film proceeds to bore the pants off you with some of the worst acting, direction and scriptwriting you will ever have the misfortune to experience. How the critics have fallen for this I do not know! Or perhaps, I do. Russell (Director) is seen as a mini great, so when he produces absolute rubbish of a script and film, then the critics have to back him or they will seem stupid for over-praising him in the first place. The film is very like 'Goodfellas' ( another pile of sh***) and there the critics had to praise Marty because he is a living God of US film directing. But, no, reputations are only as good as a last film, and this resides in the nether regions of totally awful. Plot - two smart conners - Bale and Adams - are caught by the FBI and turned to con corrupt politicians. Well, there is only evidence of their being mediocrities as conmen - their greatest feat being to con $5000 out of desperate people looking to borrow $50,000! Mad man Cooper plays an FBI agent on speed and falls for Adams as they try to frame Renner et al (New Jersey politicians). It all gets a bit heavy as the MOB appears ( you guessed it - Robert de Niro) and Bale has to con his way out (having spent the middle part of the film invisible!). The acting - Bale doing a bad impression of Quasimodo with back throat heehawing, bent frame, forever pushing up dark glasses, and a bad comb over (convincing no-one he is clever); Adams showing cleavage (not big) to show how men fall for her gets someway with her character, but not far; Cooper overacts and should never be allowed on set again until he has done three silent mime shows in the theatre; Renner an innocent who has too little to do; and Lawrence (seen for the first time by this reviewer) pouts and whines semi-angrily to get yet another Oscar nomination (what a totally limited actress she appears, but with this non-script I'll give her some slack). The script does not bear a nanoseond's consideration - was there a lot of improvisation?- because it simply is a mess - no proper characterisation, lines repeated, terrible voice overs for the thickest of the thick in Iowa presumably, and a plot that hardly holds any interest. Poor, poor, awful rubbish. It is a film that is about conning, and the critics and the Academy and BAFTA have all fallen for the con!!!!!!!