The Sting (1973)
Directed by George Roy Hill
A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.
23 connections found
View:
23 connections, in both directions
What critics compared The Sting to
The film is also what we would like to call a scam-edy, a mix of jocularity and plot twists, of the type that has powered starry Hollywood vehicles like “The Sting,” movies in which the acting, characters and glamorous patina are so distracting that viewers won’t notice till the end—if they even care—that they’ve had their reality hijacked by a brilliantly constructed con game ABOUT a brilliantly constructed con game.
In that respect, there’s a dash of Preston Sturges’ “The Lady Eve” (Adams’ on-and-off British accent plays like an homage to Barbara Stanwyck) in a picture that otherwise suggests an Altmanesque spin on “The Sting.”
Unlike other films about confidence men such as “The Sting” or “Paper Moon”, the humor in “American Hustle” is conceptual rather than so old-fashioned as to rest on witty dialogue or farcical situations.
The Sting (1973) had a satisfying payoff.
Cowriter (with "The International's" Eric Singer)/director David O. Russell ("Silver Linings Playbook") gives his latest, loosely based on Abscam, a tone of cocaine-fueled conning that plays like an updated screwball romantic comedy version of "The Sting" structured like Scorcese's 70's set "Goodfellas."
The result is an entertaining screwball caper film that wants you to think of "The Sting," Preston Sturges and that Scorsese fella.
It’s yet another reminder that if it’s not called “The Sting,” you shouldn’t get too comfortable with a con-game movie.
It swivels logic and loyalties when necessary, borrows from better cinema scams like The Sting, and plays everyone for suckers.
In the con-artist genre, filmmakers come up with winning hands when they pair the right cast with unexpected double-dealings, as in George Roy Hill’s “The Sting.”
Con-job movies delight by diagramming in detail the workings of the scams, by having fun with the camaraderie of the partners in crime and by righting some wrong (such as taking down a villain like the one played by Robert Shaw in “The Sting”).
You have, in dozens of better movies, from "The Sting" to "The Grifters" to the "Ocean's Eleven" series and "American Hustle."
The star's charm, Spielberg's slick visuals, and a couple of well-placed swing hits (including Frank Sinatra crooning "Come Fly With Me") combine in seductive sequences that evoke Rat Pack cool and the Newman/Redford spark of " The Sting ".
We honest folk enjoy hearing tales of cleverness and thievery, from "The Sting" to "Ocean's Eleven," particularly when the bad guys don't hurt or kill anyone.
In The Sting , for instance, we wonder: Is Redford conning Newman?
For those who’ve never seen one of them, the “Ocean’s” franchise is about a pack of upscale thieves, who, like Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting,” pull off masterpieces of meticulously choreographed thievery, staying slightly ahead of the authorities (and the audience).
Advertisement
* Imagine Ocean's Eleven becoming the second-highest grossing film of 2001, on the way to trumping A Beautiful Mind at the Oscars.
It's a low-rent version of The Sting, lacking deep characters to emotionally invest in, or a death to see avenged.
* Imagine Ocean's Eleven becoming the second-highest grossing film of 2001, on the way to trumping A Beautiful Mind at the Oscars.
The Sting also starred two matinee idols with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
The Sting is full of the accomplished ease and white-toothed star power that Steven Soderbergh successfully captured in Ocean’s Eleven (the charms and payoffs of which owe far more to Hill’s film than the Rat Pack original).
The soundtrack is interspersed with Chopin’s piano Études, suggesting a society comedy (and Scott Joplin’s ragtime themes in The Sting ).
The single greatest deviation from the source material is the movie’s ending, which turns away from the “Butch Cassidy” reference point in favor of something closer to “The Sting.”
Advertisement
As Robert Shaw often said in “The Sting”…”ya follow?”
Director Tim Hill (nephew of George Roy Hill, who helmed The Sting among other classics of the 1960's & 70's) progresses naturally from Alvin and the Chipmunks to rabbits.