Review: 'Ingenious' offers a pre-star Jeremy Renner - Los Angeles Times
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Review: ‘Ingenious’ offers a pre-star Jeremy Renner

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After kicking around the festival circuit for a few years, “Ingenious” finally sees release thanks in no small part to the risen fortunes of Jeremy Renner. Now, of course, Renner is a star in the Jason Bourne and “Avengers” action franchises, but before his Oscar-nominated turn in “The Hurt Locker,” he was more or less a less a largely unknown working actor.

Directed by Jeff Balsmeyer from a script by Mike Cram and based on a true story, the film is the tale of two friends, one an inventor (Dallas Roberts, himself a capable, underrated talent), the other a half-cocked salesman (Renner).

The buddies have never quite managed to hit the jackpot with the novelty gadgets they are constantly hawking. Until one really does catch on.

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Roberts and Renner make for a compelling pair, and the film features strong supporting performances by Ayelet Zurer and Marguerite Moreau as the women in their lives, helping to humanize the pair of get-rich-quick schemers or others in their orbit.

But the storytelling is wildly uneven, with an off-balance structure that leaves the ending feeling abrupt and rushed. Whatever other Renner B-sides are floating around out there, let’s hope they feel a little more genius than “Ingenious.”

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“Ingenious.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. At the Chinese 6 Theatres, Hollywood.

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