CRIMINAL
Wipe it from your memory
released OUT NOW! 15 | 113 minutes
Director Ariel Vromen Cast Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Alice Eve
Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones? No, this is not the JFK reunion you were looking for. The Iceman director Ariel Vromen fumbles this appalling London- set thriller as Costner’s psycho criminal Jericho Stewart – all collared and chained up like Hannibal Lecter in his cell – receives memory implants from Ryan Reynolds’ dead-by- theopening- scene CIA agent. Why? Because he has no frontal lobes, making him the perfect subject/ victim for this pioneering tech, as the Agency look to track down a geek, known as “The Dutchman”, who’s selling nuclear codes to the highest bidder.
Horribly violent and laughably written (“Who punches someone in a patisserie, you animal?” is one choice morsel, as a luckless café- dweller gets biffed on the nose by Costner), the visuals are dour and the stunts circa ’ 70s Sweeney. Jones, as the memory- swap medic, and Oldman, as the CIA head, are on autopilot, while Costner grizzles like the proverbial sore- headed bear. Alice Eve, meanwhile, seems to exist just to get gunned down in a Docklands shootout. Only Gal “Wonder Woman” Gadot, as the dead agent’s widow, has any cred in this pap. James Mottram
Filming for the medical research labs and CIA operations centre took place at Croydon College.