Expert art forger in Boston is released from a stint in jail early with help from the crime syndicate, who want him to pull off one final job. John Travolta plays the single dad who unites his father and teenage son in a scheme to replace a Monet from the art museum with a ringer. Listless, "moody" drama, poorly-written by Richard D'Ovidio, makes art forgery look like a hobby, chemotherapy treatments something that may sideline a cancer-sufferer for an hour or so, and breaking into a museum as easy as spraying a keyboard pad for fingerprints and switching off the electricity. Travolta looks positively lost standing in front of a canvas with a paintbrush in his hand, but his wrung-out appearance here is appropriate and he keeps his star-persona in check. Not so Christopher Plummer as his father, who continually drops f-bombs and tries stealing scenes by being 'wily.' D'Ovidio's idea of providing action in this enervated scenario includes Travolta introducing his son to the drug-addicted mother the kid never knew and, that old standby, taking the boy to a prostitute. We also get two police detectives on the case who seem plucked from a B-movie in the 1990s, plus greasy-haired guys working for the crime boss who don't even flinch when Plummer surprises them with a shotgun. The whole picture is so drab and ordinary, one can't be sure if, perhaps, the screenplay was diluted before or during production or if it was never worth a damn to begin with. *1/2 from ****
Review of The Forger
