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Matchstick Men

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 46 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Crime | Drama
Written by:
Nicholas Griffin
Ted Griffin
Eric Garcia (book)
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 12, 2003
DVD: February 24, 2004
Running Time: 116 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic elements, violence, some sexual content and language
Starring Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, Bruce McGill, and Bruce Altman
A phobia-plagued grifter (Cage) discovers he has a teenage daughter (Lohman) who wants to get to know himÂ…and his business.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Good Year Alien: The Director's Cut American Gangster Black Hawk Down Blade Runner: The Director's Cut Body of Lies G.I. Jane Gladiator Hannibal Kingdom of Heaven Thelma & Louise White Squall
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Lohman in particular is effective; I learn to my astonishment that she's 24, but here she plays a 15-year-old with all the tentative love and sudden vulnerability that the role requires, when your dad is a whacko confidence man.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Its a 21st-century version of "The Sting" for these so far rather unkind and ungentle times.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The dialogue -- especially that between Roy and Frank -- crackles with wit and intelligence (a rarity in films these days).
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A combination of criminal smoothness and overloaded neuroses, Cage pulls off the lead role better than any actor imaginable.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Let it swindle you; it's part of the fun. In fact, it's all of the fun.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
You can easily lose five minutes making sense of it - and another 10 poking holes in it - but what of it? The preceding 100 minutes pass so pleasurably, the few false moves barely register - maybe the biggest con of all, but consider me happily snowed.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
A clever look at con artists and their games of deception.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The direction is still slick, but Matchstick Men gets most of its thrills from the unknowable in human interaction. This could be the biggest "scam" Scott himself has pulled off.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
This movie is a model of technique, beautifully crafted, often brilliantly acted by Cage and the others, but it's a bit hollow at the center.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Credible? Not really. But Cage and Rockwell play off each other with devilish finesse. And Lohman (White Oleander) is on fire -- she's a comer.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paul West
The picture juggles three story threads. It's an excellent character study, a surprisingly effective father-daughter drama and a caper movie littered with surprises.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Well-acted and intriguing exploration of dishonesty in its varied forms, leavened with a dry comic touch.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Overall, Matchstick Men, which is based on the novel by Eric Garcia, is more memorable for Lohman's naturalistic acting and Scott's mannerist direction than it is for its O. Henry surprise.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
A well-made entry in the fashionable caper-movie genre, which has gathered steam lately with "Ocean's Eleven" and others.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
That's where the movie falters: It tries to give Garcia's book a heart and conscience it didn't need and never demanded.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Brad Slager
This is the work of professionals acknowledging a good story and knowing better than to get in the way.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The portraiture is so carefully done that I regret in some ways the tricky plot--which is also carefully done, but seems at times to belong to a different movie.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Actually, there's one other way to approach Matchstick Men, and that's to forget all about neuroses and con artistry and admire the movie instead for the unsettlingly beautiful directorial study in geographical mood that it is.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The best moments in Matchstick Men belong to Cage and Lohman, who, in "Paper Moon" fashion, prove that the family that cons together, laughs together.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Single-dad sitcom is not Sir Ridley's forte but, anachronistically evoking the ring-a-ding-ding ambience of "Auto Focus" and "Catch Me If You Can," his mise-en-scène is as impeccable as Roy's pad.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Odd mixture of ultra-sleek visuals, psychological probing, "Paper Moon"-like father-daughter swindling, self-improvement efforts and abrupt tough-guy stuff keeps the picture percolating, even if it seems too artificial to genuinely convince on an emotional or dramatic level.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Scott's finesse can't entirely disguise the mechanical nature of Nicholas and Ted Griffin's script, which has one too many twists for its own good. Fun while it lasts, but it's a bit of a con job itself.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Both entertaining and empty: an emotional shell game that leaves you feeling cheated even though, on the surface at least, everyone is a winner.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The soundtrack, which relies heavily on melancholy Sinatra standards like "The Good Life," "This Town" and "Summer Wind," casts perfectly modulated warning shadows over the film's light, bright look.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Cleverly conceived, skillfully made and performed with unflagging verve, it's a change of pace (slower) and scale (smaller) for Mr. Scott, the director of such pounding epics as "Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down." Yet this intimate, intricate con about a couple of petty con men selling water filtration systems is also remote and forgettable in the end, a lapidary icicle.
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Despite a cast of solid actors and a director with one of the most exquisite visual sensibilities in the business, the film is too often flat when we want it to dazzle us.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Renee Graham
Rockwell is a hoot as Frankie, but during the stretches when he's not on screen, the air goes out of the film.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The good news is that Matchstick Men is saved. Not by the plot, which entails a con so long that you can spot it coming a mile off, but by the presence of Alison Lohman. [22 September 2003, p. 202]
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
A movie about con artists that turns out to be a con job, and guess who's getting played for a sucker?
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Anyone who regularly watches caper flicks will likely quickly figure out what's wrong with this picture, though the twist ending is likely to be a surprise for the less jaded.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The movie is moderately enjoyable, but it also makes you feel conned: It offers up a disturbing protagonist and then substitutes cuteness for character.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Everything in Matchstick Men moves and looks right, from John Mathieson's cinematography to Tom Foden's production design, so it's puzzling that the film fizzles rather than fizzes.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Matchstick Men isn't even remotely intricate; it's not even particularly interesting.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The movie so successfully raises the emotional and psychological stakes in the first half that not all audiences may like the film's reversion to con-artist form in the second. The con itself is preposterous and full of holes when we think back after the movie.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Its characters are as flimsy and expendable as the title suggests, while only the most gullible of viewers (i.e., those who've never seen a David Mamet picture) will likely be duped by the painfully et cetera who's-conning-whom antics or the mounds of forced sentimentality under which they're ill-disguised.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
My real problem with Matchstick Men is that it didn't con me well enough: I saw every trick up its sleeve in the first 20 minutes. If everything had been what it seemed--now, that would have been a stunning twist.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 46 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Henry S gave it a9:
This is quite an amazing movie, mainly because Alison Lohman's performance was enough to knock anyone off their seats, I still have a hard time believing she was really 23 then! and the end is indeed original, loved it all.
Jake gave it a9:
Cage is great in this film. He plays the part extremly well. It is a very humorous movie with a great story. Rockwell and Lohman were great for the roles that they played. They gelled very well with Cage.
DaraHMude gave it an8:
its a great movie i think. i like the scene where cage and angela hangout together... the ending makes the movie even more unforgettable. i wish it would not end up like that because their relationship was very beautiful.
matt a. gave it a4:
Predictable tripe for the most part. I could see the ending "twist" coming a mile away. Also, honestly do you really think that Cage would have reacted that way at the end? That calmly towards a person that totally manipulated hiim and stole all his money? Even if he is happy and content at that point, he wouldn't be that nice about it. Anyway, Lohman and Rockwell are pretty good and that helps the film from being a total waste of time.
marshman88 gave it a9:
It was really good. i'd definately watch it again. Grade: 9.1
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
This one was quite quite an interesting trip. It looks as if the "daughter" is about to enjoy the fruits of conning others, which would've been OK, but instead, it goes for a greater twist.
G.M. D.K. gave it an8:
With amazing performances and a retro style with the camera,this films is what you may ask for when you have a hunger for a movie.
