After having a small role in the mega-hyped Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Kevin Costner is back as Jericho Stewart in Criminal, an entertaining action film with many household names as supporting actors.

This film is so far fetched and hard to follow that when I left the theater I was still a bit confused about the plot points, which is obviously never a good thing.

Ryan Reynolds makes an appearance in the beginning of the film as Bill Pope, a CIA agent killed while on assignment in Germany, tracking down a hacker that has stolen the US military’s nuclear missile codes with the intent to sell them to the highest bidder.

An extremely convoluted plot point involving an experimental brain memory transfer procedure made it just too hard for me suspend my disbelief and really get too invested in the characters and their predicaments.

Other than that, it is a stale cookie cutter plot where the protagonist must rescue his family and the world from total destruction.

Costner was the right guy to cast in this film, despite it’s ludicrous plot, as the ex-convict turned anti-hero who must rescue his family after receiving Pope’s memories. He looks so gruff and rugged that he fits the character so well. He looks like a crazy person, honestly.

Gary Oldman also pulls his weight. Oldman just knows, it seems naturally, how to play characters like CIA directors and other positions of great authority. I think his looks also play a huge part in how well he plays these parts.

Honestly the acting is the main reason why I was able to keep some semblance of real interest in what happened.

The production value, including the scenes with gunfire and action set pieces like exploding cars. I always like those things; wait, who doesn’t?

Overall, this film really didn’t need to be made and the only real reason that you should actually go out and spend money to see this film is for the actors in it, not what’s in it.