The Forger, Blu-ray (2013/2015)

by | Jun 28, 2015 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews

The Forger, Blu-ray (2013/2015)

Cast: John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan
Studio: Lionsgate [6/23/15]
Video: 2.40:1 for 16:9 1080p HD color
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Extras: Several previews, “Identifying The Forger: Creating Character and Conflict”
Length: 96 min.
Rating: ****

None of the still photos on the box nor the promo material identified this particular forger as being an art forger, so I thought it was about a check forger. Travolta plays the world’s best art forger who makes a deal with a crime syndicate to get out of prison early to spend time with his son, who has been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. He is supposed to steal a painting of a woman by Claude Monet from a museum in Boston, paint a perfect replica of it and install that back in the musum so that no one will notice, while the leader of the syndicate sells the original at a high price to a buyer. There’s nothing blown up or special CGI effects in this one. It was shot in Boston and shows several local scenes there.

The forger enlists the help of his father (who also has a prison past) and the son, and together they plan and carry out the heist of their lives. They are being dogged by a police lieutenant as well as the syndicate’s ruffians. I must admit I didn’t fully understand the actual heist and its outcome, and it doesn’t really matter, but both Travolta and Plummer do a great job together, along with the young actor playing the son. In spite of everything, the three are shown luxuriating in the South Seas at the end of the movie, on the money that would have been paid to the crime syndicate.

The one thing that did bother me was the way the art forger copied the Monet painting – just by looking at it and getting its “feeling.”  Come on, surely that’s not the way forgers create an exact copy of a famous painting. Plus he hadn’t painted anything in many years. It’s certainly not a kiddie movie (like so many nowadays) and it has an aspect of the inspirational in the relationship of the three and the son’s cancer.

—John Sunier

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