‘Matchstick’ bolsters Cage’s strength as actor

In theaters

MATCHSTICK MEN, directed by Ridley Scott, written by Nicholas Griffin and Ted Griffin, 120 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Ridley Scott film, “Matchstick Men,” continues the resurrection of Nicholas Cage’s career, which fell off a cliff after he won the Academy Award for 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas” and sucker-punched himself into believing that he should become the next Schwarzenegger or Stallone.

That decision cost him the following he earned early in his career, when he found a niche in interesting, character-driven films such as “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Raising Arizona” and “Moonstruck.” After selling out for the low-tide likes of “Con-Air,” “The Rock” and “Face/Off,” it seemed as if the actor was lost to the lure of the big paycheck until, last year, he showed up in the terrific “Adaptation.”

Directed by Spike Jonze, the movie worked as well as it did because it realized Cage’s strengths as an actor: He isn’t at his best as a testosterone-pumped breathe-hard tossing bombs and dodging bullets. Instead, the actor soars when playing intense, introspective characters psychologically teetering on the edge.

That’s just the case in “Matchstick Men,” which screenwriting brothers Nicholas Griffin and Ted Griffin adapted from Eric Garcia’s book.

In the film, Cage is Roy Waller, a man nearly crippled by obsessive-compulsive disorder whose day job happens to be crippling the bank accounts of those unsuspecting fools he and his partner, Frank (Sam Rockwell), target to swindle.

A nervous, pill-popping, chain-smoking con artist with a face full of tics and twitches, Roy is riddled with anxieties and saddled with agoraphobia.

He’s likable in a sad way, just barely keeping it together and getting through life with the help of his clutch of little pink pills.

Unfortunately for Roy, those pills are accidentally washed down the kitchen sink in an early, pivotal scene that launches the story into a series of events: In an effort to get him new pills, Frank introduces Roy to a new psychiatrist (Bruce Altman), who in turn convinces Roy that he would be better prepared to handle the world if he were more connected with his family, specifically his long-lost, 14-year-old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman).

Shades of “Paper Moon” ensue, with Roy and the sweet-faced Angela almost immediately bonding. Without giving too much away, father and daughter grow close, with Angela taking a natural interest in Roy’s work and Roy himself being relieved – indeed, flattered to the point of relaxation – that she isn’t repelled by the idea that he’s a crook. In fact, if anything, Angela is seduced by her father’s life of crime, so much so that she eventually convinces Roy to let her help him on a major job he and Frank are about to pull.

Revealing more of the plot would be the real crime. Suffice to say that Scott has a few twists up his sleeve, one of which is an especially satisfying stunner that uncoils near the end in a cathartic rush, and that Cage and the raw, unpredictable Lohman deliver two of the year’s more compelling performances.

Grade: A-

On video and DVD

CONFIDENCE, directed by James Foley, written by Doug Jung, 98 minutes, rated R.

Perhaps more than any other con film in recent memory, James Foley’s “Confidence” is aware of its lineage, such films as “The Sting,” “House of Games,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Grifters,” movies that were just as much about style as they were about pulling off a daring heist.

Working from a screenplay by Doug Jung, Foley knows the genre’s tricks and he employs them liberally, featuring a dense, complex plot rife with twists, a loose, appealing style, and the sort of over-the-top, tough-guy dialogue that suggests David Mamet decided to get high and poke a little fun at his own work.

There’s no denying it – “Confidence” is confident when it comes to imitating the films that came before it, but what does it bring to the game that’s fresh? Unfortunately, unlike “Matchstick Men,” not much.

The movie stars Edward Burns as Jake Vig, a smooth, Armani-clad con man we first see lying dead in an alleyway with a gunshot wound to his chest. “So, I’m dead,” Jake says in the punchy narration that accompanies the film. “I think it’s because of the redhead.”

What redhead? Taking a cue from “Sunset Boulevard,” the film is off and running in an effort to find out, telling its story in flashback from the point of view of a dead man, with Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti and Luis Guzman rounding out the edges.

Fueling the movie is the $5 million heist Jake and company are looking to steal from an unsuspecting banker, but really the film is mostly about its hipster style, going so far as to note at one point that “sometimes style can get you killed,” even when it’s more accurate to say that sometimes style can get in the way of substance, which is certainly the case here.

Still, “Confidence” is above-average, a predictable yet lively mimic lifted considerably by its talented cast, all of whom work overtime to shape the material into what they wish it could have become – a smarter thriller that raised the bar.

Grade: B-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.