Cast
Nicolas Cage : Roy Waller
Sam Rockwell : Frank Mercer
Alison Lohman : Angela
Bruce Altman : Docteur Klein
Bruce McGill : Chuck Frechette
Jenny O'Hara : madame Schaffer
Steve Eastin : monsieur Schaffer
Beth Grant : la femme de la laverie
Sheila Kelley : Kathy
Fran Kranz : Slacker Boyfriend
Tim Kelleher : l'inspecteur Bishop
Kim Cassidy : la strip-teaseuse
Nigel Gibbs : Holt
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Great Movie! - Intriguing characters
Author: Quentin from Vancouver, BC
26 February 2004
*
I found this movie exciting & fun to watch from beginning to end. The relationship between father & daughter was extremely heartfelt and made the movie tops in my books. Amazing performance by Alison Lohman; I can't wait to see her in Big Fish. One of Nicolas Cage's better performances. In retrospect the plot is a bit far-fetched but makes up with excellent character development and emotion. Perfect movie for a father/daughter to watch together. I easily give it 9/10.
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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Nic Cage's greatest acting
Author: nixskits from Canada
13 December 2009
*
I know he won an Oscar for another film (don't get me started on that!), but this performance is really the one I regard as his crowning achievement. He's so convincing as a man who's totally out of control even when he appears to be in control that it's like a spinning top which doesn't really look like it's moving fast at all.
Sam Rockwell and Cage are partners, if you can call Cage's tic laden role a man who ever really connects with anybody at all. They con for a living and are quite accomplished at the game. So when his new challenge, a teenage daughter he had no contact with up till now, enters and shakes up his OCD world, this walking, talking repetitive routine he calls life gets flipped over into something resembling a normal existence.
The great Bruce McGill appears as someone you don't want to cross, unless it's out of his way to avoid the inevitable trouble. He fakes humbleness and charisma perfectly until the cobra he really is gets uncoiled and strikes.
This is an odd choice for Ridley Scott to direct. I'm glad he made it, as this film is as great socio-comedically as "Blade Runner" was poignantly techno-emotional. "Matchstick Men" gets under your skin, in funny and tragic ways, usually simultaneously. There really are men out there like Cage's Roy, as disturbing as that might be. Here Cage gets to be a three dimensional person and not just the human function of a lame action formula.
