Lionsgate Home Entertainment has placed director Ariel
Vromen’s action/sci-fi thriller, Criminal, on its release calendar as
a three-SKU array of home entertainment product selections — DVD, Blu-ray/DVD
Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack — for delivery to retail this
coming July 26.
The ARR is 102 days and domestic ticket sales were a little
light at just $14.7 million.
Deadpool’s Ryan Reynolds does a brief cameo as a CIA agent hot
on the trail of extremely dangerous cyber criminals when he’s captured,
tortured and killed. That’s the set-up
for the action part … the sci-fi part comes when Dr. Mahal Franks (played by
Tommy Lee Jones) has the dead agent’s memories transferred into the mind of a
psychotic killer named Jericho (Kevin Costner).
There’s some mumbo-jumbo about Jericho having an
underdeveloped brain as the result of a childhood accident, so he’s the perfect
candidate for the procedure. And, it is
urgent that those memories are retrieved as Reynolds (William Pope) has hidden
a hacker, “The Dutchman” (Michael Pitt), who has had a sudden change of heart
when he discovered what he was hired to hack.
So let’s see, someone thought that it would be a good idea
to implant the memories of a skilled CIA agent, with crucial information about
a hacker who has developed a backdoor into the nuclear launch codes, into the
mind of an unthinking killer! What
could possibly go wrong?
As goofy as the plot sounds, Criminal is actually a
pretty solid suspense thriller that finds the natural instincts of Jericho — who
is wired to kill anyone who crosses his path — with the feelings of Pope. As it turns out, he is married to a woman
named Jillian (Gal Gadot — as Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice and Gisele in the Fast and Furious film series), and
they have a kid named Emma (Lara Decaro) … when the daughter and mom are
threatened, Jericho become their protector (normally he would just kill’em).
If you enjoyed Hitman and Hitman: Agent 47, then Criminal
is very similar. Lots of action with sci-fi
elements … and, without giving too much away, the ending sets up a possible
sequel (it seems unlikely with the box office performance, but nevertheless it
is there).
As to bonus goodies, there are deleted scenes, a pair of
featurettes — “Criminal Intent” and “Director’s Notes” — plus the Madsonik
music video, “Drift and Fall Again.”
