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- 2015
- Not Rated
- Image Entertainment
- 1 h 34 m
- 2015
- Not Rated
- Image Entertainment
- 1 h 34 m
Summary Four friends stumble into a deal too good to refuse. But when the investment goes bad, they learn that part of their funding came from a notoriously ruthless crime boss (John Travolta)... and it’s payback time. Now, they must successfully kidnap a family member of a rival kingpin in order to erase the life-threatening debt. In way over t...
Directed By: Jackie Earle Haley
Written By: Robert Lowell
- 2015
- Not Rated
- Image Entertainment
- 1 h 34 m
- 2015
- Not Rated
- Image Entertainment
- 1 h 34 m
Criminal Activities
51
6.8
Where to Watch
Summary Four friends stumble into a deal too good to refuse. But when the investment goes bad, they learn that part of their funding came from a notoriously ruthless crime boss (John Travolta)... and it’s payback time. Now, they must successfully kidnap a family member of a rival kingpin in order to erase the life-threatening debt. In way over t...
Directed By: Jackie Earle Haley
Written By: Robert Lowell
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
51
11% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
78% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
11% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
51
11% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
78% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
11% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
It doesn’t feel like a mere imitation; it has too much wit and too many striking performances for that.
Working from a glib, chatty script by Robert Lowell that's not as cleverly hatched as it likes to think it is, Haley whips it into something reasonably entertaining.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 27 User Ratings
6.8
48% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
37% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
15% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 27 User Ratings
6.8
48% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
37% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
15% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES is a great movie. It's got super actors that play their characters perfectly, a creative story that I bet you will not guess the final outcome and it's just one of those movies that everyone gets pretty much what they deserve.
This movie grabs you from start to finish and I'd highly recommend it.
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Four debts and a funeral.
For all the gritty title and noir poster it has, the better part of Criminal Activity is its satirical attempt on crime genre. The thriller works by introducing subplots while playing out the main story with a lot of twists and turns. While not every narrative pays out, there's a solid acting here and it's pretty exciting to see the diverse characters as they are put in highly volatile situations.
Four young men reunite on the funeral of their friend. After a smoke they are intrigued by an investment opportunity that fails almost immediately. Unfortunately to them the investment is already tied to a mafia and they must do a difficult favor to clean the slate. Their hardship eventually turns into a spiral of dangerous power struggle with kidnapped niece and nephew while agents and assassins chase after them.
It's a deeper premise than it originally shows, creating layers of subplots as it progresses. Some of the sequences are highly entertaining due to their absurdity and good delivery by the actors. Edi Gathegi as the gangster involved in all the shenanigans stands out even among the capable leads of John Travolta and Dan Stevens. There are unexpected outlandish mafia themed narratives, or perhaps slight parody of it, that will deliver chuckle or thrill to audience.
However, even with most of the story manage to be entertaining, the movie tends to overreach. It has plenty of side characters or events that may not be that important yet still get a lot of screen time. It tries to pull off too many tricks that don't resonate better than its core story. Not to mention the twisting revelation at the end feels rather abrupt and might too far fetch, although it's still decent due to the outlandish nature.
Criminal Activity works on parts where the acting and satire are strong, but it does try to overreach with few others distracting stints like a greedy mobster.
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An unremarkable but solid genre exercise, one that shows off Jackie Earle Haley’s chops as a director.
There’s nothing remotely fresh about this revival, but tight pacing and an overqualified cast keep things zipping along nicely.
Just when you’re about to write off your investment in Criminal Activities, the third-act dividend pays off, in spades.
The actors have the showmanship to chew the lurid, shopworn material up to bits, savoring it like a Royale with cheese.
Director Jackie Earle Haley's Criminal Activities is the worst kind of Tarantino clone, one with no gas in the tank, and no clue about how to pull off Tarantino's swagger.
Very slow boring movie
with no action, and with a plot hard to get at the end.
I rolled the film forward after 50 mins.
John Travolta poor and timed performance.
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Criminal Activities marks Jackie Earle Haley's directorial debut. It is infuriating in its unoriginal quality. The plot and characters are unabashed Tarantino knockoffs, neither used to their full potential. What's worse are the often poor performances, with major players including Haley himself, Michael Pitt and even John Travolta. The only saving grace is Edi Gathegi, elevating above everyone else in his role as a simple drug dealer.
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