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Parents' Guide to

Life of Crime

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Cool, funny Elmore Leonard crime tale has sex and language.

Movie R 2014 94 minutes
Life of Crime Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
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This film qualifies as enjoyable entertainment, or maybe a "B"-level movie, rather than a great movie. Based on a 1978 novel by Elmore Leonard and featuring some of the same characters from his 1992 novel Rum Punch -- which was the basis for Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown -- LIFE OF CRIME will no doubt suffer from comparisons. And it definitely does feel like the lesser of the two films, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad film.

Writer/director Daniel Schechter brings a certain kind of economical edge to the production. It doesn't have any big set pieces or action scenes, but the general combination of the period clothes and sets, the great cast, and the colorful dialogue tends to make for a brisk, forward-moving energy. And the conversations that try to anticipate the next move conjure up a kind of low-key suspense that really works.

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