Film Review: Criminal

 Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Cert: 15 cert

Director: Ariel Vromen

Screen writer: Douglas Cook, David Weisberg

Starring: Kevin Costner , Gary Oldman , Tommy Lee Jones , Ryan Reynolds , Jordi Mollà , Gal Gadot , Michael Pitt , Amaury Nolasco , Alice Eve , Antje Traue , Scott Adkins , Lara Decaro , Freddy Bosche , Emmanuel Imani , Harry Hepple.

Running time: 1h 53 min

Parents advised to read before viewing film as some scene may contain scenes unsuitable for younger viewers.

Sex & Nudity: none

Violence & Gore:  The film contains several scenes of violence with some bloodletting. These typically involve hand-to-hand combat and some exchange of gunfire.

Some of the stronger scenes include a man getting shot in the head while in a car with blood spurting; a man's throat being slit by a make-shift hook; and a dissection exposing part of a man's brain.

Profanity:  **The film contains one utterance of the religious profanity 'Jesus f**king Christ'.**

There is also use of other coarse language throughout the film, with various characters using expletives such as 'f**k', 'motherf**ker' and 'c*nt'.

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking: Tablets were seen taken by the main

Frightening/Intense Scenes:  'Criminal' is an action-thriller film about how the memories of an CIA agent, Bill Pope, is transferred into the brain of Jericho, a criminal with brain damage. Driven by Bill's memories, Jericho is compelled to complete the last mission of Bill.

Official BBFC Rating: 15 (very strong language, strong violence)

Official MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong violence and language throughout.

Story: Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) is a CIA agent on a mission in Germany tracking down a shadowy hacker nicknamed "The Dutchman." When he gets mysteriously ambushed and killed, an experimental procedure is used to transfer his memories into dangerous ex-convict Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner). When he wakes up with the CIA agent's memories, his mission is to find The Dutchman and eliminate him before the hacker launches ICBM's and starts World War III. But complications soon arise and the mission turns personal.

Likes: First of all don't expect a high octane action thriller here as this is just purely a thriller that's pretty much underrated with some brilliant performances from a almost a full casting.

The main story of the film revolves around a terrorist plot to get a worm program that can control the world's weapon system's which the C.I.A & terrorist are fight to get to it first , but due to unforeseen situation the person that knows the where about's of the program wind up dead.

Using a experimental program to swap the mind of a dead agent into a psychopathic person to retrieve the memories of the dead agent , it prove more trouble than it worth when thing spiral out of control.

 Ryan Reynolds given a short part in the film does he best with what he given as always brilliant performance , but where this film shine is from Kevin Costner what an outstanding performance playing a character like you've never seen before.  he's played several characters in his life time career in movies never a psychopath with no moral , empathy or sympathy in personality due to accident when he was younger but he was a bad ass.

Gary Oldman awesome acting as always playing the hard ass C.I.A boss trying to get the information of the where about's of the worm program he does a brilliant job at showing a person stressed. Tommy Lee Jones dam he looking his age now but brilliant performance & brilliant actor, it ashame we dont seem more of Tommy lee on screen because he an awesome actor.

 Gal Gadot im surprised had a much bigger role in this film with a brilliant performance as a protective mum showing just how good of an actress she is, looking forward to her film next year as wonder wonder.

The film its self doesnt offer anything that hasn't be done before but this film does offer some memorial moments from Kevin Costner characters in which a few scene are pretty brutal & funny at the same time, but normally thriller are boring but this seem to be entertaining in a way that grips you to the film , although does feels like Self less concept in some ways its still a brilliant film.

The action scene are well choreographed , the pacing of the film is a little slow at time but it a pretty good film all round to watch, its a film worth checking out for Kevin Costner performance.

Dislikes: There could of been a bit more action in the film to speed the film up a bit but apart from that this is a good film.

Overall : Good thriller story ,  brilliant performance, almost full casting

Rating: 5 out of 5 for entertainment / 8 out of 10 for concept.