Film Review: The Score

The creator of the Muppets tries his luck with some real actors...

What do you do when you have the talents of three of the best actors of their generations Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Edward Norton at your disposal? That was the dilemma faced with by Frank Oz the well known puppeteer and movie director. Unfortunately Frank fails to match up to the task in hand in his latest movie The Score.

De Niro plays Nick a crook who wants to go straight but is convinced by his old partner in crime the fence Max (Brando) to do one last job with a young upstart Jack Teller (Norton). Nick owns a piano bar and his girlfriend is air hostess Diane (Angela Basset). Shot in Montreal the film looks great, and all the main players are more than competent. The problem with this film is that there is no tension. Life is so good for Nick you wonder why he would bother with crime.

Jazz plays a big role in this film, and just like jazz this film is all in the head, there's no soul like the Muppets Oz is used to dealing with. He should stick to those Muppets and leave the real actors to directors who can add style and tension to a plot and really bring out the best in actors, which should have happened here but did not.

The Score at the end of this is a dull nil-nil, with many of the crowd leaving before the end.

Kevin Smith