"When was it you started thinking you were better than me?"

Year: 2001

Director: Frank Oz

Writers: Daniel E. Taylor, Kario Salem, Lem Dobbs, Scott Marshall Smith

An aging thief is hoping to retire, but he needs to do one more job to steal a valuable sceptre with a younger man.

This movie actually managed to be thrilling compared to that Quicksand, the last crime / action thriller I saw. Quicksand was mostly lame, but The Score was partially unbearably suspenseful, and it made me sit on the edge of my seat, excitingly waiting for whatever it was during each suspenseful scene.

Well, the story here is just mediocre. Especially the trope "a criminal is retiring / retired but one last job" blah blah blah, it's really overused. And this movie uses other almost cliché tropes, like the computer hacker Nick works with, like wow, it's basically the same exact character that is in every movie where they need a nerdy hacker. So clichés and tropes are definitely overused.

But I got to give it up for the casting of the film. Robert De Niro is alright, Marlon Brando is good, but I think Edward Norton was very impressive. He played a character who would play a mentally disabled guy, and that was extremely convincing. After you learn it's an act, it's easy to know, but it every then and again feels like completely different character. I don't know if it should go like that, when you play someone playing someone, but Norton is truly a magnificent actor.

The cinematography in this movie was very nice. Usually I don't point out cinematography unless it's really, really good (or bad), but somehow this movie was visually very nice compared to several movies from the same genres. It's still not mind-blowing or extremely beautiful, but it's very nice.

So let's go back to the suspense. What made the suspense in this movie? Well, partially it was the basic "everything is going wrong".. trope. The characters come up with a plot but they have to change it, because something is going differently. And of course there's  the thing when it's so close that the character is caught in action. Those kind of things really typical, but it still adds to the suspense. Other thing was, well, of course the situation, but the music affected. Mostly it wasn't the music, but a lack there of. There were moments when there was no music at all, and those scenes were unbearably suspenseful.

The Score is decent. It doesn't bring too much originality to the table, but it's very suspenseful, which I think is what we need in a crime thriller worth watching. So I do recommend The Score.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

6 / 10

Now I'm 89 % through with my challenge. Three more to go.