TIFF Review: “Evil Genius”

Evil Genius (Courteney Cox, 2026) 1 out of 5 stars

Courteney Cox’s second feature as director, Evil Genius, is based on the eponymous 2018 documentary (which had the subtitle “The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist”), which itself told a true-life tale. That would be the 2003 attempted robbery of a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania, by a strange group of sort-of friends who thought they were on to a good idea. They were not, and nor is this movie.

Patricia Arquette (Gonzo Girl) and David Harbour (Thunderbolts*) headline the cast, starring as Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Bill Rothstein, former lovers who, now middle-aged (or more), conceive of an ostensibly perfect crime so that Marjorie can have a local drug dealer (Michael Chernus, The Wake) kill her father. She is angry that the inheritance she expected from her mother has been stolen by this last one. In truth, she’s just profoundly unstable, probably bipolar and in need of medication.

The movie shows us how Marjorie and Bill first met, which are the most interesting scenes, a nice period piece that unfortunately makes the rest of what comes feel less well-crafted by comparison. I believe it would have better suited the narrative had we then followed both characters a little more throughout the years, just to better understand the profound dysfunction of their later lives. As it is, what opens with a title card that promises dark comedy—“You can’t make this shit up”—becomes instead just sad and unpleasant.

Even the choice of how to start the story feels misguided. Bill and Marjorie are in the middle of disposing of a body (whose identity we’ll eventually learn) when Bill, apparently done with their misdeeds, leaves to supposedly pick up food, only to call the cops, instead. It’s meant to pique our interest, but the pacing does not live up to the promise of that first title card. These are unhappy, uninteresting people doing barely comprehensible things.

The color palette doesn’t help, either, alternating between muddy browns and muddy blues. Cinematographer Eigil Bryld (Ocean’s 8) is surely following instructions from his director, but this is one ugly picture (except for those flashbacks). True, it’s a nasty story, but that doesn’t mean we have to suffer, too.

Everyone in front of the camera is game, trying their hardest to make it work. The ensemble includes such reliable supporting actors as Garret Dillahunt (The Dead Don’t Hurt), Tom McCarthy (Anima), and Owen Teague (Griffin in Summer), who match Arquette and Harbour for intensity. All of it is to no avail, however, for it’s the script that fails. If ever an evil genius were needed, it was in the writing.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.