Criminal 2016

     Bill Pope is a CIA agent tracking down a hacker with the nickname The Dutchman in London. The Dutchman has a wormhole program with codes that will launch ICBM’s and start WWIII.  Pope has a bag with $10 million to give to The Dutchman but before he can make the handoff, Xavier Heimdahl captures him.  Heimdahl is a Spanish businessman-turned-anarchist and he is also seeking The Dutchman.  Pope is tortured but he doesn’t give up the information.  The FBI is desperate to find out where the payoff money is located and how to find The Dutchman.  They have kept Pope’s brain neurons firing artificially.  Dr. Franks is working on transferring brain information from one mouse to another.  He’s a long way from human trials but the FBI needs his expertise now.  Jerico Stewart is a sociopath with a childhood injury to his frontal lobes.  He’s released from prison and Dr. Franks transfers the information from Pope’s brain to Stewart.

     This film has a strong cast but they are working with far fetched material??  The scope of the characters doesn’t give them enough to work with either?  There are a LOT of chases, captures, explosions and running.  Is it possible that Nicholas Cage passed on this film because there wasn’t enough content even for him??  One positive with this film is you don’t have to think or worry that you missed something from the scenes!!  They will just keep moving along anyway!!  2 1/2* This movie is so-so)

113 min, Action directed by Ariel Vromen with Kevin Costner, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Jordi Molla, Michael Pitt, Amaury Nolasco, Alice Eve, Antje Traue.

Note:  Imdb 6.3 out of 10, 30% critic 47% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 1*, Amazon 4* out of 5* with 962 reviews, The Guardian 1* out of 5*

Special Note:  Filmed in London, Surrey, Hampshire, East Sussex, England, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria.  During the memory transfer operation, it’s not Ryan Reynolds but a doll/dummy made to resemble him from prosthetic special effects.  This method was cheaper than contracting Reynolds for two days of work.  It also would’ve been tiresome for him to sit in an operating dentist-like chair for two days!!  Kevin Costner directed the underwater sequence shot in a water tank because of scheduling conflicts for Ariel Vroman.  Originally, Nicolas Cage was selected for a lead role.  The nickname The Dutchman was selected when filming was planned for Amsterdam Netherlands but the budget didn't have enough money.  Ryan Reynolds had a break in his schedule while filming Deadpool of 2016 and he worked four days on this film.  There is another film with the same title from 2004.