Butler's Cinema Scene

Mos Def, John Hawkes and kidnap victim Jennifer Aniston

“LIFE OF CRIME”  My rating: C+  (Now showing at the Cinetopia)

98 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Movie chemistry is a weird thing.

Sometimes you can have a lot going for you — terrific performances, a literary pedigree — and yet the damn souffle won’t rise.

Such is the fate of “Life of Crime,” an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel The Switch and set in his familiar world of bumbling crooks and unlikely heroes.

Written and directed by Daniel Schechter, whose credits include the little-seen “Goodbye, Baby” and “Supporting Characters,” the film has a plot that might be a variation on O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief,” that classic short story about kidnappers who discover the rich brat they’ve snatched is more than they can handle. (It might also remind you of “Ruthless People,” the 1986 Bette Midler comedy about a kidnapping.)

Low-level Detroit crooks Ordelle (Mos Def, performing under his real name of Yaslin Bey) and Louie (the ever-excellent John Hawkes) cook up a scheme to snatch Mickey (Jennifer Aniston), the wife of local crooked businessman Frank Dawson (Tim Robbins).  They will hold her in the home of a third accomplice, a Nazi-worshipping head case (Mark Boone Junior).

What nobody counts on is that Frank is having an affair with a scheming younger woman, Melanie (Isla Fisher), and has no reason to cough up a $1 million ransom for the return of the wife he was already planning on trading in.

Typical of a Leonard yarn, “Life of Crime” is a mix of both humor and suspense. We’ve seen this formula work wonderfully in movies like “Get Chili” and “Out of Sight”, but something goes wrong here.  It’s not that Schechter’s movie lacks either humor or suspense, but rather that the proportions seem out of whack.  The best Leonard adaptations are actually funnier than the books they are based on. One is likely to respond to a Leonard book more with a wry grimace than with an outright belly laugh, and that’s the style Schechter adapts.

Jennifer Aniston

Unfortunately, it makes for rather desultory viewing despite some very good performances. There’s not much snap or crackle here. You can’t put your finger exactly on what’s wrong, but it’s pretty clear all is not right.

Go for the actors. Def/Bey, another of those rappers who has made good as an actor, plays Ordelle as the same sort of quick-witted, drolly funny wise-guy that Samuel L. Jackson portrayed in Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown,”  yet another Leonard adaptation. Which only makes sense because they’re playing the same character.  Difference is, Def’s Ordelle isn’t yet the mean mother Jackson gave us (“Life of Crime” is set in 1979, 20 years before “Jackie…”).

Hawkes’ Louie is a good-natured doofus who lacks the killer instinct.  His sympathy for their victim exceeds his greed.

Fisher’s Melanie is a scheming bimbo who will happily change allegiances at the drop of a dollar.

About the only genuinely “good” character here is Aniston’s Mickey, who goes from terrified captive to smart manipulator determined to enjoy her revenge cold. Aniston plays it absolutely straight here and she’s quite good.  Still, I wish in the film’s latter stages she had pushed the humor more.

But then that’s the beef with the whole film.

| Robert W. Butler

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