Confidence *** (2003, Edward Burns, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti,Morris Chestnut, Luis Guzman) – Classic Movie Review 1009

Edward Burns stars as a conman who takes on creepy, sadistic crime boss (played by Dustin Hoffman) in a twisty, nicely crafted, arty-farty Sting-style film noir crime-caper from director James Foley in 2003.

It’s packed with interesting characters, entertaining dialogue and intriguing situations that are better than the plot. One problem is that it depends on its cleverness. It does its darnedest to trick you, but you can see the ‘surprise’ ending coming a mile off.

Dustin Hoffman is very showy and magnetic in a crazy character part, but Edward Burns is unfortunately bland and dull in the big lead turn as the hero. The plot may be cheesy and predictable, but the slick and well-honed handling is a credit to the talent of director Foley, who deserves a slightly better script than Doug Jung’s screenplay to work on.

See it for Juan Ruiz Anchîa’s nice, eye-catching noir cinematography, the credible low-life atmosphere, and the very good performances, especially Hoffman’s, though Rachel Weisz, Morris Chestnut, Paul Giamatti, Andy Garcia and Luis Guzman are also notable.

Like Foley’s film Fear (1996), it’s the kind of disposable movie you forget all about an hour after you’ve seen it, but if you check it out again you’ll still find it a decent time-passer. This one, though, does have a few pretensions, and carries them off quite skilfully, and with, er, confidence.

Foley is known as the director of At Close Range (1986), After Dark, My Sweet (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Fear (1996), The Chamber (1996), Confidence (2003), Perfect Stranger (2007) and TV’s House of Cards, with Kevin Spacey.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1009

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