The Forger (2015) * *

Directed by:  Philip Martin

Starring:  John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Jennifer Ehle, Anson Mount, Abigail Spencer

The Forger is in no hurry to get where it's going and once it gets there, the payoff is not worth the patience we've expended waiting for it.    The movie combines the elements of family drama and a heist, but they almost feel like two different movies.     It's all setup.

John Travolta stars as Raymond Cutter, a forger with nine months left to go on a 5-year prison stretch.    He makes financial arrangements with a local crime lord to pay off a judge to spring him early.    Why can't he simply ride out his time?     He arranges his release so he can spend as much time with his son, who has a brain tumor.     His son (Sheridan) lives with Ray's grandfather Joe (Plummer), an irascible former thief who says things like, "Jesus, Mary, and me".    Get it?    His name is Joseph?    Maybe you had to be there.  

Cutter, however, won't be able to spend time reconnecting with his family without a hitch.   Keegan (Mount), the criminal who Cutter now owes a favor, asks him to run one more heist.    He wants Cutter to steal a Monet painting from a museum and replace it with an exact replica that no one will suspect is a forgery.    This sounds a lot tougher in theory than it does in practice.     Remember all of the planning that the Ocean's Eleven crew put into knocking off a casino or stealing the Faberge Egg?    None of that is necessary here.    Without giving away too much, Ray and his crew don't break a sweat while swapping the paintings.     Ray expends even less energy forging the painting.    It would have been interesting to witness how an expert forger like Ray plies his trade.    A pizza oven was used if I recall correctly.    The security systems used to protect these priceless works of art are easily tricked or knocked off line.    The cameras suddenly go off and the guys in the surveillance room barely move.     Do businesses really use a giant room with multiple monitors that looks like the production trailer used to broadcast the Oscars?  

The Forger has all of the elements in place to be successful in at least one of the two genres it was attempting to tackle.    Travolta has to juggle a lot of emotional balls in the air and he does what he can.    Christopher Plummer has the irascibility thing down pat.    Sheridan doesn't play for pathos and shows wisdom beyond his years in some scenes.    One subplot involves Ray acting as a one-man Make-A-Wish foundation for his son.    He grants him three wishes, like a genie, and one of them involves helping the boy lose his virginity.    The idea of Ray hiring a hooker to help the 15-year-old lose his virginity is wrong and creepy on so many levels.    

The two federal agents trailing Ray sit outside in their car as Ray brings his boy to the hooker's place.    Their initial plan was to simply tail Ray and bust him for the heist later.   One agent says to the other, "If we don't bust him for this, then we're just not doing our jobs."    At least someone displayed some sense in this subplot.    Where is Children's Services when you need them?    The movie would have been wise to remove this all together.   

I notice as I'm writing this that I'm using the words "could have" and "would have" often in this review.    The Forger gives me plenty of reasons to use them.