It takes a keen sense of the absurd to successfully adapt an Elmore Leonard novel to screen. Quentin Tarantino has one, and “Jackie Brown,” his adaptation of Leonard’s Rum Punch, may be his most best film to date. Steven Soderbergh has one (ever seen his “Schizopolis?”), and his eponymous adaptation of Leonard’s novel Out of Sight may be his best film, as well. Now, in “Life of Crime,” director Dan Schechter applies his own sense of the absurd to Leonard’s prequel to Rum Punch, and the result is a match made in heaven – if heaven were a micro-noir in which people tried to pull off half-baked scams in between stumbling into the wrong person’s bed.
At the center of this small-scale maelstrom is Jennifer Aniston, and it’s been a while since the former sitcom actress earned her keep this well. Deadpan and frostily blond, she plays the beleaguered Mickey Dawson who, in between ducking the drunken rages of her corrupt real-estate developer husband, Frank (Tim Robbins), is sleeping with her friend’s weasley husband (Will Forte). It’s gotten to the point that, when kidnappers Ordell (Yasiin Bey/Mos Def) and Louis (John Hawkes) stow her with their neo-Nazi pal Richard (Mark Boone Jr.) while awaiting a million-dollar ransom from Frank, she doesn’t seem that much more beleaguered – even after Frank, already planning on ditching Mickey for his morally and sexually flexible mistress (Minnie Mouse-voiced Isla Fisher), calls the con men’s bluff. For a long stretch, everyone just chain-smokes unfiltered cigarettes while languidly considering how to outsmart each other. Continue Reading →
