A confidence scam that ends in murder spawns an even bigger scam that may end the same way for Jake Vig.
--Randy
Confidence
Directors: James Foley
Producers: Michael Burns, Marc Butan, Michael Ohoven and Michael Paseorkek
Writers: Doug Jung
Features: n/a
Characters:
Jake Vig...Edward Burns
Lily...Rachel Weisz
Gunther Butan...Andy Garcia
Winston King...Dustin Hoffman
Morgan Price...Robert Forster
Manzana...Luis Guzman
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Review:
"Confidence" is a new razzle dazzle movie of the machinations of a scam artist named Jake Vig, played by Edward Burns. The only problem is the razzle dazzle is played upon the audience, too. When the film is over, the realization sets in that the whole movie was just so much smoke in the face meant to cover up a farfetched plot and cardboard characters.
Jake Vig, is a confidence man working with a team of three other partners. The movie begins as the team fleeces Lionel Dolby of a suitcase of money, unaware it belongs to Dolby's underworld boss, Winston King, played by Dustin Hoffman. After one of the team is found murdered, Vig and his team realize their circumstances. Instead of running, Vig comes up with the idea to meet with King and offer him a deal he can't refuse. Letting King know the money is gone, Vig makes a deal to run a scam for King on anyone he chooses in order to repay the money. King is intrigued, though wary, but finally decides to take Vig up on his offer with the stipulation that he has to take one of his henchmen along to oversee the project. They come to the mutual agreement that the target should be Morgan Price(Robert Forster), a second generation gangster who has acheived respectability in the legit world, even owning a bank, which has made King jealous. Vig adds a female pickpocket to his team named Lily, played by Rachel Weisz and is set to put an operation into gear designed to swindle Price's bank out of five million dollars. A complication is added as a Federal agent named Gunther Butan(Andy Garcia) arrives in town on the trail of Jake Vig from a previous scam.
This story has been done many times before. The movie has the feel of "Pulp Fiction" "Go" and "Jackie Brown," wherein a myriad of characters flow in and out of each others' lives only to come together in a grand finale. Robert Forster even starred in "Jackie Brown." The team that Vig has assembled is reminiscent of the "Mission Impossible" movies and television series. Vig compares his calculations to a chess game that a good player can see the outcome of twenty moves ahead. In "Confidence," with its many characters, the plotlines are so intricate and dependent on each other it is like watching ten chess games going on simultaneously. In other words it is very improbable that a future can possibly be forseen, especially since Vig is making suppositions on people he has never met and studied.
The only person in this movie that is not paper thin is Dustin Hoffman's character of King. Hoffman, the grand master of characterizations, is allowed a little more time on screen to flesh out Winston King. Even he is not in the film to a great degree, so it is a tribute to his acting that he plays King just this side of Ratso Rizzo with ambiguous sexual overtones. All the other actors play polaroid characters. They are so busy moving the plotline to be still. Edward Burns is careless enough to come off looking like Ben Affleck. Many times during the movie, especially when Burns puts on sunglasses or has his hair in front combed upwards, the resemblance is uncanny. Why on earth would anyone want to look like a star known for his granite acting? Rachel Weisz contributes very little other than to look beautiful and has, maybe. a thirty second romance scene with Burns. Any nudity is done very briefly by characters little short of extras.
This movie is not boring. It's just that there is no time to get to know a character and even care whether they live or die. The plot moves so fast with so many convolutions that what is happening is lost in relation to what has already taken place and the viewer finds themselves going quietly numb. When "Confidence" reaches its' end the audience walks out dizzy.
I would give this film two out of five stars.
----Randy