|
 |
Incognito (1997)
|
by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 40767
Price: $14.98
|
|
|
Jason Patric stars as ace art forger Harry Donovan, eager to get out of the counterfeiting business and become a legitimate painter, but willing to take on one last, monumental job: creating a fake Rembrandt that will fool absolutely everyone. The promised money is good but the clients are creeps: gun-toting art dealers who ultimately set up Harry for a murder, forcing him to go on the run across Europe with an art expert (Irene Jacob) in tow. The film has a major obstacle in Donovan himself, an arrogant and unlikable jerk played with unappealing self-absorption by Patric. Worrying about this guy's fate is not an inviting prospect, but there are compensations in Jacob's smart performance and Rod Steiger's emotionally raw presence as Harry's mentor father. Director John Badham takes particular delight in penetrating the arcane world of forgery and in detailing Harry's working methods, from intense research to color selections to choices of tools and aging processes. Badham keeps us constantly curious and fascinated by this unholy marriage of expertise and deceit, and at least nominally interested in Harry's efforts to free himself of the criminal squandering of his talents. <I>--Tom Keogh</I>
Viewer Reviews
Art forger Harry Donovan (Jason Patric) agrees to one last job before making dad happy by giving up the shamming and pursuing his own art. His last job's a lulu, too - paint a `lost' Rembrandt. Lost off the coast of Spain centuries ago with no surviving copies.
It's a solid enough premise around which to build a movie. Films about obsessive people tend to be interesting, and expert art forgers - Donovan is supposed to be one of the best - have to be obsessive. And it's easy to get swept up in films that pursue their own idiosyncratic obsessions. Creating the perfect forgery seems a natural. How does the crook outwit the experts? Where are the pitfalls on the trail to the perfect fake?
INCOGNITO cares about some of that stuff, but it cares about more, too much more, besides. To begin with there's a trio of unscrupulous art dealers Donovan has to deal with. They're here mainly to provide thriller fodder - they fund the `last job' and are show up at the end to betray the intense young artist. Then there's Prof. Marieke van den Broeck (Irène Jacob,) the beautiful art expert who `feels' one candidate isn't a real Rembrandt and more or less jets around Europe bumping into Donovan. Of course the pretty Prof. and Donovan tryst, fall in and out of love, get handcuffed together for an escape through Britain, and cement their bond during an extended, and unconvincing, movie-ending courtroom act. Some movies throw in a little bit of everything. Of course, with the gorgeous Jacob and GQ-coverboy Patric in the lead I guess crowding a bumpy love affair into an already overloaded movie ought to have been expected.
INCOGNITO isn't a bad movie, but it's not one you lean into, either. There's an awful lot of hokum going on - the bad-guy art dealers were forced, the events that led up to the trial strained at the credibility leash, and the trial itself was thin and unconvincing. A shaky three-stars for this one.
Back To Top
|
Incognito (1997)
Available from Amazon
|
|
NOTICE: All product prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
Copyright © 2009, Dominant Systems Corporation
info@HowlingVideo.com
Privacy Policy
Last Modified : 1-8-2009
|
