Today’s quick review: Confidence. Con man Jake Vig (Edward Burns) makes a dangerous mistake when he steals from the King (Dustin Hoffman), a powerful crime boss. To pay off his debt, Jake agrees to pull a con on Morgan Price (Robert Forster), a money launderer in charge of millions of dollars. Now Jake and his crew (Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, and Brian Van Holt) must figure out a way to get the money and get away with their lives.
Confidence is a crime movie about a con man working on a risky con. The movie follows Jake and his accomplices as they try to clear their debt with King by doing what they do best. Confidence features a light tone, a solid supporting cast, and an interesting plot. Unlike other con movies, the focus is not on the scam itself, which is fairly basic, but rather the complexities surrounding it, as Jake works to stay one step ahead of his enemies.
Confidence gets the basics of the genre right, but it doesn’t hang together as well as it should. The plot logic is tenuous in a few places, and not all of the threads pay off in the end. The light tone generally works well, but the stakes are too low for the plot twists to have much meaning. Just a little bit more drama, a more personal motivation for Jake, or even just a shade more emotion from him would have tied the movie together nicely.
As it stands, Confidence makes for a decent pick, buoyed by a suitably elaborate plot and a charismatic performance by Dustin Hoffman. The movie makes a few mistakes with its plot and its main character, making it less rewarding than other con movies that work with similar tools, but it still gets enough right to provide some good entertainment for a viewer who’s looking for something light. Skip it if you are looking for a more dramatic con.
For a more stylish con movie starring Rachel Weisz, try The Brothers Bloom. For a con movie with similar scope, try Focus or Duplicity. For a similar setup with a raunchier tone, try Employee of the Month. For a heist movie with more ambition and better craftsmanship, try Ocean’s Eleven.
6.7 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.5 for a generally well-constructed plot.