Too much of chaos, few thrills

Criminal
English (U/A) Cast: Kevin Costner, Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds,
Jordi Molla, Gary Oldman
Director: Ariel Vromen

The brain of a dead CIA agent Bill Pope (Reynolds) is transplanted into the head of a sociopath inmate Jericho (Costner) and soon enough the memories of the secret agent begin to unravel a new twist. Jericho comes to know that Bill had met a hacker who had all access to the top secret of US military arsenal. Meanwhile, anarchist (Molla) is keen on getting the secret data stored in a flash drive to depose elected governments across the world. Jericho must find the hacker even as he is chased by both the CIA agents and the bad guys.

Criminal is way is too funny to be taken seriously as the idea of putting someone’s brain into a bad guy’s skull is done in all seriousness. It is also too serious to be a sci-fi fantasy thriller. The amazingly beautiful Gadot (after her amazing role as ‘Wonder Woman’), is forced to meekly accept Jericho’s emotional attachment to her. It’s just wrong. She is not alone. Oldman is shown to be still heading CIA London’s branch despite all his failures. How’s that possible? The efforts to sell the film using Reynolds in the beginning also fail miserably.

In spite of the mega cast and Costner’s ability to fit into any role, the thrilling elements are nowhere.