John Travolta plays art copyist Ray Cutter. Can he forge a Monet to pay his debt, evade slow-witted cops and fulfill his son’s bucket list?
Occasionally a movie comes along that's such an awkward compilation of ideas it fascinates: The Forger, a Boston-set melodrama involving cancer, Impressionist art and deadbeat dads, is only about half that good.
John Travolta, with a mask-like worried expression punctuated by a thumb-sized chin beard, plays an art copyist Ray Cutter, who bribes a judge to get sprung from jail to be with his terminally ill teenaged son, Will (The Tree of Life's Tye Sheridan) who lives with his granddad (Christopher Plummer, sporting a flat cap and a growly Irish brogue).
Can Ray, a blue-collar thug, forge a Monet to pay his debt, evade slow-witted cops and fulfill his son's bucket list? Murky both in look and plot, The Forger isn't convincing anyone.