The Bag Man (also known as Motel or The Carrier) is a 2014 neo-noir crime thriller film directed by David Grovic.
It is based on an original screenplay by James Russo and a rewrite by David Grovic and Paul Conway and an inspiration of The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption by Marie-Louise von Franz.
[2] The film stars John Cusack, Rebecca Da Costa, Crispin Glover, Dominic Purcell, Robert De Niro, and Sticky Fingaz.
Elderly gangster Robert Dragna recruits professional killer Jack to pick up a bag and wait for his arrival at a motel.
Robert Dragna stresses that Jack is not to open the bag or allow anyone to view its contents under any circumstances, illustrating his point with a piece of broccoli.
At the motel, Jack meets several random people: Ned, the desk clerk who uses a wheelchair; Rivka, a tall prostitute; and Lizard and Guano, a pair of bald men who are perpetually agitated about something.
Jack sets the briefcase aside and leaves to dump the corpse poorly stored in his car, but promptly returns upon being spotted, only to discover that Rivka has broken into his room.
Increasingly worried about the safety of the bag, Jack buries it near the motel carpark only to be caught by Ned, who is now out of his wheelchair.
[6] Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "If it weren't for the touches of cruelty, this might have been a passable B-movie, but Bag Man ends up wasting the A-list talent caught up in the lurid exercise.
"[7] Stephen Holden of The New York Times described the plot as "a protracted and increasingly tedious cat-and-mouse game" that "pathetically tries to build up expectations about what might be in the bag".