‘People are fascinated with con men like they’re fascinated with mobsters – at least the fictional kind,’ says novelist Eric Garcia, whose manuscript for Matchstick Men was being considered for the screen even before publisher Random House could schedule its first printing. ‘There’s something mythical about them that draws us to them and makes us want to watch them operate.
‘Maybe it’s the idea that they’re using their wits to make a living while everyone else is accomplishing the same thing through toil and effort,’ he muses. ‘I think the lifestyle appeals to us because the day may come when we get laid off or the mortgage is on the line and we’d like to imagine that, given the opportunity, we have the potential to make a quick buck the “easy way” – if only to see if we could do it.’
Garcia, known for his imaginative series of ‘Rex’ books, featuring a modern-day Los Angeles private detective who is actually a latex-disguised dinosaur, is represented by a talent agency whose clients include producers/screenwriters Ted Griffin and Sean Bailey. Garcia’s agent, who loved the Matchstick Men manuscript, sent copies to Bailey and Griffin, thinking it might strike a chord with them.
‘It’s a freight train of a plot with emotional depth, which is rare,’ says Bailey, an Emmy Award nominee as executive producer of the innovative HBO documentary series Project Greenlight. ‘It sparked both of us.’ Griffin, who previously collaborated with Bailey on the noir drama Best Laid Plans and was the screenwriter on Steven Soderbergh’s stylish 2001 hit Ocean’s Eleven, had a similar response. Jokingly calling it ‘Paper Moon in colour,’ Griffin says, ‘it’s primarily the story of a man coming to terms with himself through meeting his daughter and the relationship that develops between them. The con scenario is essential but secondary.’
Griffin did some prep work by speaking with two FBI agents on the subject of con men. ‘It’s not as far-fetched or antiquated as people might believe,’ he says, dispelling the notion that such small-time crooks only exist in the 1930s nostalgia of The Sting. ‘These characters still exist and they’re still running the same old games, but they have also branched out lately to include the Internet and telemarketing.’
Meanwhile, buzz on the project reached renowned filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, who signed on as executive producer, with his ImageMovers Productions partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey joining the producing team. All that remained was to find a director to do it justice.
Rapke, who launched his producing career with What Lies Beneath in 2000, following a successful 15-year run as a talent agent, couldn’t have been more pleased when one of his former clients, three-time Oscar nominee Ridley Scott, expressed interest. ‘I was in the agency business for a long time because I love talent and I love to be working with talent and supporting their visions,’ Rapke says. ‘This a wonderful turn of events for me, having been Ridley’s agent, to collaborate with him now in a whole different way in the production process.’
Examining the director’s scope, Rapke notes that ‘Ridley is known for some phenomenally big movies, epics like Gladiator and Black Hawk Down that use giant canvases. He’s certainly one of the great visual directors. But at the same time, he’s good at telling an intimate story with strong narrative, as he did in Thelma & Louise – something with a smaller production scale but still a big cinematic idea.’
Starkey underscores how Scott’s deft touch suited the Matchstick Men scenario. ‘If you look at Ridley’s body of work, you find character pieces in all of his films, even the ones that are better known for their scale and visual impact. At the core of those movies, it’s really about the characters and that’s what makes them work.’
True to form, Scott cites the ‘unusually clever script’ as piquing his interest in Matchstick Men. The legendary director has effectively interpreted a range of genres including science fiction (Blade Runner, Alien), historic drama (1492), action (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down), black comedy (Thelma & Louise), psychological/horror (Hannibal) and fantasy (Legend). While diverse, what they all have in common is Scott’s initial, instinctive reaction to a story or idea.
‘When I choose a project it’s as though a bell goes off in my head, and I listen to that bell, which is my intuition,’ the director reveals. Once the process has begun, ‘all other aspects of a project start to come into focus.’
Acknowledging that the story is essentially a comedy, ‘with humour all the way through,’ Scott notes that ‘it’s also somewhat of a moral tale, which is all the more interesting because it’s filled with characters practicing very bad behaviour. For them, a good day is when they can take a few hundred dollars off a housewife in a Laundromat. They’re not exactly what you’d call lowlifes, but they’re pretty close. Their saving grace might be that their victims are people who are themselves seeking a fast buck or doing things they shouldn’t be doing, so it’s a case of them getting caught with their trousers down.’
As Bailey puts it, ‘We’ve made an honest movie about dishonest people. It’s not a fantasy about the heist of $100,000 million in krugerands by some super-slick criminal masterminds, it’s about skimming a little bit here and a little bit there from ordinary people. Guys like this really exist and this is how they live.’
Overall, says Scott, ‘The humour is very dry, which is good because I appreciate dry humour. But I also like to see someone slip on a banana skin occasionally.’
Production notes
Matchstick Men
Directed by: Ridley Scott
©/Presented by: Warner Bros.
Production Companies: ImageMovers, Scott Free
In association with: Rickshaw Productions, LivePlanet
Executive Producer: Robert Zemeckis
Producers: Jack Rapke, Ridley Scott, Steve Starkey, Sean Bailey, Ted Griffin
Co-producers: Charles J.D. Schlissel, Giannina Facio
Unit Production Manager: Leigh Shanta
Production Office Co-ordinator: M. Michelle Nishikawa
Location Manager: Janice Polley
Post-production Supervisor: Teresa Kelly
Production Consultant: Stuart Barter
1st Assistant Director: K.C. Hodenfield
2nd Assistant Director: Jeff Okabayashi
2nd 2nd Assistant Director: Steve Battaglia
Script Supervisor: Annie Welles
Casting: Debra Zane
Casting Associate: Terri Taylor
Screenplay: Nicholas Griffin, Ted Griffin
Based on the book by: Eric Garcia
Director of Photography: John Mathieson
Camera Operators: Mitch Dubin, Andrew Shuttleworth
1st Assistant Camera: Steven Meizler, Gary Dunham, Reginald Newkirk, A. Anthony Capello
2nd Assistant Camera: Tom Jordan, Naomi Villanueva
Video Playback: Dave Deever, Rob Abbey
Visual Effects: Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc.
Special Effects Co-ordinator: Marty Bresin
Special Effects: Roy Savoy
Editor: Dody Dorn
Associate Editor: Adam Scott
Assistant Editors: Trudy Yee, Pablo Prietto, Cybele O’Brien
Production Designer: Tom Foden
Art Director: Michael Manson
Set Designer: William V. Ryder
Set Decorator: Nancy Nye
On-set Dresser: Kristen Jones
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan
Costume Supervisor: Linda Matthews
Additional Wardrobe: Lorraine Crossman, Brigit A. Jones
Key Make-up: Tarra Day
Make-up Artist: Kristina Vogel
Key Hairstylist: Mary L. Mastro
Hairstylist: Sheryl Blum
Main Title Sequence Designed by: yU+co.
Opticals: Pacific Title
Composer: Hans Zimmer
Musicians: Heitor Pereira, Satnam Singh Ramgotra, Frank Marocco, Emil Richards
Orchestrated/Conducted by: Bruce Fowler
Music Score Arranged/Programmed by: Hans Zimmer, Geoff Zanelli, Jim Dooley
Music Supervisors: Dody Dorn, Marc Streitenfeld
Music Editor: Marc Streitenfeld
Score Recorded/Mixed by: Big Al Clay, Slamm Andrews
Music Score Consultants: Trevor Morris, Melissa Muik
Production Sound Mixer: Lee Orloff
Re-recording Mixers: Michael Minkler, Myron Nettinga
Supervising Sound Editors: Per Hallberg, Karen Baker Landers
Dialogue Editors: Christopher Hogan, Peter Staubli
Sound Effects Editors: Christopher Assells, Dino R. Dimuro, Dan Hegeman
Supervising ADR Editor: Chris Jargo
ADR Editor: Anna MacKenzie
Foley Artists: Dan O’Connell, John Cucci
Supervising Foley Editor: Craig S. Jaeger
Stunt Co-ordinator: Eddie Yansick
Stunts: Douglas Crosby, Mary Albee, Mickey Giacomazzi, Brock Little, Carrick O’Quinn, Noon Orsatti, Denney Pierce, Spike Silver, Michael Trisler
Helicopter Pilot: Kevin La Rosa
Unit Publicist: Ernie Malik
Cast
Nicolas Cage (Roy Waller)
Sam Rockwell (Frank Mercer)
Alison Lohman (Angela)
Bruce Altman (Dr Harris Klein)
Bruce McGill (Chuck Frechette)
Sheila Kelley (Kathy the cashier)
Beth Grant (laundry lady)
Jenny O’Hara (Mrs Schaffer)
Steve Eastin (Mr Schaffer)
Fran Kranz (slacker boyfriend)
Tim Kelleher (Bishop)
Nigel Gibbs (Holt)
Bill Saito (pharmacist 1)
Tim Maculan (pharmacist 2)
Stoney Westmoreland (man in line)
Lynn Ann Leveridge (bank clerk)
Giannina Facio (bank teller)
Sonya Eddy (parking garage cashier)
Michael Clossin (long-winded parking booth driver)
Kim Cassidy (stripper)
Paul Hubbard (store clerk)
Monnae Michaell (carpet store manager)
Dennis Anderson (cashier)
Marco Kyris (pizza boy)
Jerry Hauck (taxi cab driver)
Jim Zulevic (airport bartender)
Ramsey Malouky (hospital intern)
Andi Sherrill (pharmacy cashier)
Kate Steele (strip club waitress)
Adam Clark (strip club bouncer)
Daniel Villarreal (car wash employee)
Marco Assante (valet parker)
USA-UK 2003©
117 mins
35mm
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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