From big action movies like Black Hawk Down and Gladiator director Ridley Scott moves into more intimate territory with Matchstick Men.
Nicolas Cage plays obsessive-compulsive Roy Waller who\'s so pernickety about cleanliness that he can\'t even smoke a cigarette without surgeon \'s gloves. Twitching with tics, popping pills to stay relatively on the ball he\'s an expert small-time conman who\'s a mentor to his partner Frank, Sam Rockwell. But when things start to get out of control with Roy, Frank recommends a psychiatrist and out of those sessions emerges the fact that Roy thinks he may have a 14 year old daughter from a marriage that went bust long ago. Urged to come to terms with his past Roy makes contact with Angela - a normal skate-board riding teen who finds her daddy fascinating. Too fascinating by half. Matchstick Men is based on a book by Eric Garcia, but the excellent screenplay by Nicholas and Ted Griffin - the latter was responsible for the adaptation of Soderbergh\'s Ocean\'s Eleven - and intelligent direction from Scott makes a terrific basis for a very good film.
All the technical ingredients are fabulous. Add Nicolas Cage\'s performance - it\'s not easy to make Roy\'s affliction painful rather than laughable on screen - and the convincing efforts of young Alison Lohman, such a fine young performer as we saw in White Oleander, and you have a tremendously satisfying experience at the cinema.
