Matchstick Men -- best flick I ever seen in the theatres

note. no spoilers in this initial post, but later on, expect spoilers. You been notified.... now on with the rest of this regularly scheduled post..

Wow.

2 hour thrill-ride. It got rave reviews, my friend dragged me to it, I was a little stubborn to go see it, even with the "best movie of the year thus far" comments... but the acting of Nicholas Cage and company was very solid indeed and won me over.

Best movie I ever seen in a theatre to date. Then again, consider what I have seen. The Mask, True Lies, Spawn, Halloween H20, Godzilla 2000, Rush Hour 2, The Mummy Returns, Wrong Turn, Freddy vs. Jason, etc.

Still, not intended to be a sarcastic compliment to MM at all. Matchstick Men is great and I whole heartedly give it 2 thumbs up. I'm not one of those big "let's go to the theatre" guys but even I enjoyed this one vastly.

If you saw it, whadaya think? spoilers welcomed. I'd like to discuss this film in-depth actually... as I thought the proceedings within the film were greatly interesting indeed...

alison lohman was fucking hot.. as a 14 year old and at the end of the movie.

yeah pretty good

but very predictable

SPOILERS!!

You know what this movie reminded me of?

The (fuckin) Score! Yeah, the one w/ DeNiro and Ed Norton. In fact, it's funny cuz I was just talking about the Score with my friend before we saw MM.

The climax is ALMOST the same deal! In fact, I knew how everything was working out.

1. When daughter and dad got home from dancing and eating, I *KNEW* the bad guy (fat face) was somehow gonna be there.

2. I knew in the scene where Cage tells Frank to take daughter somewhere safe, I knew Frank was in it too... by his facial expressions. At first I figured it was just a lapse of bad acting on his part, then I quickly figured it out so yay, cookie for me

3. I knew that hospital scene was a fake, and that Dr. Kline was also in it.

What I did NOT know was that the daughter was in it as well, though I should have, based on her "fake shooting" of fat face (you MM watchers know what I'm talking about)

The Score is a lot like MM. MM to me was rather predictable at the climax but was still good.

Instead of the "protagonist" screwing the bad guys at the end like in the Score, in MM it's vice versa.

I loved the scene where one year later Cage meets up with his "daughter" in the rug store.... LOL great stuff.

The ending was great too. I knew she was gonna be in Cage's kitchen but I didn't expect the pregnancy... lol

Movie was so good it was the first movie I ever saw where hardly ANYONE LEFT their seat as the credits started rolling. (And there weren't blooper cuts like there were in Rush Hour 2's credits or in LIFE's "Damn! This ain't my daddy's watch!")

Hella people stay back to talk about the film... it was THAT damn good.

I liked it, I admittedly got a little surprised here and there, but that's because I was really rooting for the characters.

Bobak said:

I was really rooting for the characters.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you really do sort of develop this emotional bond with Cage and Lohman, in particular. I loved those father-daughter scenes... they were... and I know this is corny... very "Americana" in a way.

It was all very innocent, and gave you a look of what it might be like for a single father spending time with his 14 year old teenage daughter stuck in that trap zone of "I want to be an adult right now... no wait, I want to be a 5 year old no wait..."

Lohman was so very sweet and innocent, but she had her moments. She looked like Kirsten Dunst in certain scenes...

i had my suspicions all the way thru it but it was confirmed that the daughter was in on it when she signed the second signature on the security deposit box