The fad for remakes still hasn’t gone out of fashion, and at this rate it never will, but it doesn’t have to be recognizable titles, all-time classics or valuable properties that find themselves subjected to a reinvention.
A quick glance at the Netflix most-watched list via FlixPatrol sees one unusual retread stick out like a sore thumb among the more established movies on the rankings, if only for the fact it was originally released in theaters seventeen years ago, where it promptly sank without a trace and was never heard from again.
The directorial debut of Gregory Jacobs, famed cinematographer and regular collaborator of Steven Soderbergh, Criminal is based on the Argentinian crime drama Nine Queens, which was released four years previously in 2000. The plot follows a low-level crook in need of a new partner to plan a brand new scam, which involves selling fake silver to a currency collector. Naturally, things go south and spiral out of control, with a love interest inevitably complicating things.
John C. Reilly, Diego Luna, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Mullan star in Criminal, which holds a decent Rotten Tomatoes score of 69%. Even though it boasts Soderbergh and George Clooney as producers, you’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of people who’d even remember that it existed, which makes the Netflix resurgence all the more surprising.
