Matchstick Men

I don’t remember now why I palmed Matchstick Men off on somebody else to review, but I managed to miss it altogether when it came out. I don’t feel like I missed anything much in so doing, but I have to say, when I did see it, I greatly enjoyed watching it — at least most of the time. As slick, stylish entertainment that doesn’t pretend to be anything else — except perhaps as clever as your proverbial firkin of simians — it’s pretty much everything you could hope for. Cage and Sam Rockwell are a good match as the con men of the title, and the fact that Cage’s exaggerated twitching subsides as the film progresses is a decided bonus. (Yes, it’s funny at first — and Cage was a man just born to twitch — but by the time the film retires this schtick, I was more than ready.) Unsurprisingly — since this is a very Hollywood movie — it’s the presence of his hitherto unknown daughter that provides the catalyst for his transition to normalcy, or an approximation thereof. As I noted above, this is a film that works better if you know as little as possible going in, so I’m saying no more about the plot. I will, however, say that one of the chief delights here is going back over it in your mind and seeing if it really fits together.

The Hendersonville Film Society will show Matchstick Men Sunday, July 26, at 2 p.m. in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community (behind Epic Cinemas), 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville.