It takes a special kind of talent to completely suck the life out of an Elmore Leonard novel, a talent director Schechter most definitely possesses.

We are haphazardly thrown into the lives of two criminals who have already made a plan to kidnap someone. In crude brush strokes the other characters are introduced shortly after and, without any sense of urgency whatsoever, the simple plot starts to wander off, much like your mind probably will while watching this.

It's pretty bizarre really. The dialogue is there, the talent is there, the situations are there, but it all remains flat, mechanical and forgettable. Going through the motions, captured on film and still it manages to derail itself towards the end by…

"She looks like a million bucks."

If you were to run into Life of Crime prior to having seen Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown then you probably wouldn't feel in the mood to see it considering Daniel Schechter's film is a bit of a letdown. Despite being a prequel to Jackie Brown, which was also based on Elmore Leonard's novel, this film doesn't have that same punch to it. This proves just how difficult it is to do what Tarantino does so well. Leonard always writes rich characters who at times seem quirky. He mixes black humor with action pretty well, but in Life of Crime that spark is missing. The film relies on a talented cast who make the movie…

Review In A Nutshell:

Jackie Brown was an impressive feat, both in its screenplay and direction; an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch. Tarantino has taken Leonard's material and gave it a flavour that is inspiring and most importantly, entertaining; I am assuming though, because I have never read any of his novels. Life of Crime is an adaptation of another book by Leonard, The Switch, but this time under the writing and direction of Daniel Schechter. Life of Crime, like Tarantino's adaptation, is a film full of flavour and fun, coming off as both inspired and entertaining.

Life of Crime revolves around a kidnapping of a wealthy man's wife in order put her for ransom, a price of a…

Granted, Elmore Leonard's 1978 novel The Switch is not one of his best, but Life Of Crime—despite having great performances and Leonard's trademark dialogue—manages to suck out all of the energy, style and pacing of the mere 182 page novel.

I've always thought most of Elmore Leonard's books are just transcripts that travel through the book stores only to finally end up on the big screen. They're almost entirely dialogue and light on the descriptions, backstories and inner-character psychology. This makes his books fun to read, and even easier to adapt to film. Some have been great (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Jackie Brown) some have been terrible (Be Cool, 52 Pick-Up) but they all have the same trademark dialogue…

This is one of those rare films that after 2hrs watching it, I could hardly care to remember what happened in it. It's hard to say why this film fell flat for me. It's all just a bit of a blur.

On the surface it seems to have everything going for it; an interesting crime scenario, some decent stars and off beat humor. But it also has none of these things. It's been filmed as if it were a drama. There's just no edge to it, making the entire film rest on the cast's shoulders and because of this it seems to have far too much confidence in its own material to even warrant some decent filmmaking. Yet watching it,…

Take away Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L Jackson and Robert De Niro, reduce the script to TV movie standard , change the Leonard Elmore story (in this case 'The Switch') and what are you left with? Well, Life of Crime of course. This is a loose prequel to Elmore's 'Rum Punch' famously brought to the screen by Tarantino. Here we have a younger Ordell and Louis, played by Yasiin Bey (the artist formerly known as Mos Def) and John Hawkes respectively, some 10-15 years before we met them the first time round.

It is nice to see Tim Robbins once again who manages to at least add a sense of personality to his character, which is woefully missing elsewhere. He is…