SOURCE: Dargis, Manohla. “A Veteran of Epics Directs Smaller Men.” Los Angeles Times (12 September 2003): E14.

In the following review, Dargis characterizes Matchstick Men as “a minor interlude between Scott's usual major endeavors,” noting that Scott seems more comfortable directing epic-scale productions.

A self-consciously modest film from an immodestly talented director, Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men comes equipped with a major star (Nicolas Cage), a ripe second banana (Sam Rockwell) and the regulation pretty face (Alison Lohman).

The script was co-written by Ted Griffin, who hatched Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven and like the earlier film hinges on some likable grifters after a serious score. It has the sort of cheerfully amoral characters and zigzag plotting that should make it float, but in contrast to the Soderbergh, it merely drifts.

A natural-born filmmaker, Scott has a visual style that in its balance of pointillist detail and sweeping scale can complement whatever...