'The Forger': EW review

If you can get past John Travolta’s wispy thatch of chin hair and wide-of-the-mark Boston accent, Philip Martin’s The Forger isn’t half bad. Travolta, coming off a string of forgettable films, plays Ray Cutter, an imprisoned Beantown crook whose specialty is copying impressionist masterworks. With a sick son (Mud’s Tye Sheridan) in the care of his gruff conman father (Christopher Plummer), Ray cuts a deal with a local mobster to get out of the joint and spend time with his kid before it’s too late. In exchange, he has to forge a Monet. The art-heist plot is pretty by-the-numbers, but Travolta nearly saves it with his doomed air of paternal helplessness. He makes you feel the weight of being at the mercy of forces bigger than oneself. At 61, he still possesses something rare, even in rote material like this. C+

ncG1vNJzZmidp2OwsLmOmqmtoZOhsnB%2Bj2psaGhkZH90e8WoqaCdomKyuHnRnq2inadk