Michael Pitt: 10 Greatest movies of all time
By Rachel Roth
10. Criminal Activities
Release Date: November 20, 2015
Box Office: Made only $386,744 worldwide
Critical acclaim: Received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences, holding a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes
About the role: Michael Pitt plays, Zach, a successful hot-headed stockbroker who the director refers to as “the alpha male of their group”. He spends most of the movie ordering the others around and trying to multitask by being in charge of their kidnapping scheme while hoping to catch his money-loving fiancee cheating on him. Basically, he’s the stereotypical jerk.
Simply the best: The directorial debut of Jackie Earle Haley feels like Suicide Kings if it had more arguing and a more complicated plot twist. Four men gather for the funeral of one of their high school friends and impulsively decide to invest their shared money in a stock they hear will rise in value. Six months later, the stock becomes worthless and they end up owing the mob $400,000.
The mob boss, played by a gym teacher more than a gangster looking John Travolta, offers to wipe their debt clean if they kidnap someone and hold him for 24 hours. Obviously, it doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped.
It’s a little silly but certainly entertaining. The characters comically talk over each other and panic the way real non-criminals would in a similar situation. Every conversation is decorated in neatly packaged realism that is almost good enough to let you look past everything else in the overly thought out and poorly planned plot.