OK, so the plot in this cops and counterfeiters story has holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Too bad they didn’t ask us—we could have thought of far more plausible scenarios than some of the ones in this film. [Gee, we always leave our shovels near where we buried our money so anyone can find it…] Nevertheless we still found it oddly affecting and even charming, a real sleeper that was a bit different from what we were expecting. What made Kounterfeit stand out for us were the unexpectedly touching relationships and several plot twists that were cool. And, oh yes, Bruce with long blond hair. Yum.

A small time hood named Hop gets in way over his head when an acquaintance/colleague leaves him with several million in counterfeit money. Not intentionally, you understand. The "sort of buddy" gets helped along to the next world by two sadistic bad guys who resemble Jason in more ways than just the hockey masks they wear to hide their identities. Let’s just say they did really unpleasant things to certain parts of this poor guy’s anatomy. Ouch. They were looking for the money but didn’t find it because Hop had it. Oopsie.

Hop confides in his good buddy Frankie (Bruce), a street-smart ex-hood gone legit who owns a sleazy strip joint. Oh, yeah, really high class entertainment there. Hop presents "the plan to end all plans" to Frankie. "You have to get in touch with your inner weasel," he tells Frankie. Hop, who’s not too swift on the uptake but kinda sweet in a goofy sort of way, needs both Frankie’s smarts and gun hand. Bemused and somewhat skeptical, Frankie nevertheless gets drawn into this money switching scheme partly by the lure of all that money but also because he wants to help his friend Hop.

It is the relationship between these two unlikely friends that is so affecting. Frankie, the cool, unruffled tough guy with brains and Hop, the excitable goofball whose IQ is barely in the double digits, are an odd couple, but Bruce as Frankie convinces us that he really cares about Hop. When Hop is shot, Frankie’s grief is palpable and touching, a tribute both to the quirky story and to Bruce’s fine acting.

Enter the next oddly affecting relationship. Colleen, played by Hilary Swank in a pre-Oscar performance, thinks Frankie is the one who killed her brother, an undercover cop caught in a frameup. She had been on the scene, hiding behind a door at her brother’s beach house when a counterfeit money switch was occurring. Peering out at Frankie with his blazing guns (how come he is the only one who suffers not a scratch in this fierce gun battle?), she thinks she sees him shoot her brother. In her police report, she describes the blond with the long ponytail she saw as a man with "cold blue eyes and a very, very strong presence." You got that right, Colleen.

Later, after discovering where to find him, Colleen pretends to be looking for a job as a dancer at Frankie’s club. When she comes back for an audition, things get r-e-a-l interesting. Not logical, not plausible (her dancing wouldn't win her any prizes on "American Idol," for one thing, though she does have more class than most of the women Frankie has hired) but very interesting, at least for Bruce fans. When Frankie carries her up to his bedroom on the second floor, our hearts begin to race. But what the heck are all those candles doing blazing away in his bedroom? Does Frankie always leave such a fire hazard going when he is downstairs drinking to drown his sorrows? We thought he was smart. But no matter, we are now much too engrossed in the sexy scene that is taking place to care about such trivial matters as ridiculously unbelievable props.

Anyone who is naïve enough to think that Bruce Payne is too tough to do tender love scenes (and asn’t seen him as Jurgen in La Femme Nikita) will change their minds after checking out this unexpected little romance scene. Colleen may be putting on an act when she kisses him gently on the face, but when Frankie looks up at her with those suddenly not so cold blue orbs, the tender desire in his eyes melts our hearts. Whew, what those eyes convey—a whole universe of meaning. Unfortunately, Colleen isn’t having any of it. Foolish girl. Instead she whips out a gun and points it at him. Oh-oh. Always the smart-mouthed tough guy with a ready quip, Frankie responds, "Why don't you wait to blow my brains out. It might get better."

Since Colleen isn’t a killer and he’s not a murderer nor does he act like one, Frankie does manage to convince her that he didn’t kill her brother. They become buddies in a scheme to catch the real killers. So, in one of the clever plot twists in this story, the seemingly unsavory ex-hood becomes the hero. We like the irony. We also like seeing Bruce play a hero, even if one with a less than spotless character.

Another reason we like this film, in spite of the (ahem) imperfections in the plot, is watching Bruce demonstrate his ability to convey many different kinds of emotions. OK, so we think he’s a great actor, yes, but in this film, he gets to go through more than the usual range of emotions. One viewer less biased than we are has expressed amazement at the range of facial expressions Bruce can display. In Kounterfeit, we see on Frankie’s face, puzzlement, playfulness, sternness, humor, bemusement, cool calmness, intense anger, desire, casual charm, and deep grief. Few faces are as animated, constantly changing, and fascinating as Frankie’s. Ben Affleck, view this movie and weep.

It’s unlikely that Kounterfeit would get two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper but we think Bruce as the charming and animated Frankie, the poignant friendship between Hop and Frankie, and the delicious relationship between Frankie and Colleen lift it out of the hum-drum. It’s one of our favorites and we think it shows rather nicely that Bruce makes an appealing and convincing hero.