CONFIDENCE (James Foley, 2003)

Reviewed: April 27th, 2003

I'm predisposed to enjoy the hell outta movies involving con men, but this is insufferable tripe; goes wrong every which way it can, starting with Doug Jung's cavernous, posturing script (utilizing an asinine flashback structure), extending to Foley's obnoxious camerawork (complete with pseudo-hip sped-up motion, pseudo-hip swoosh transitions, pointless pseudo-hip digressions [what was up with that red head shit?], pseudo-hip nails-on-chalkboard freeze frames) and topping off with the mind-boggling decision to cast Mr. Edward Burns in the fucking lead. Admittedly I must extend my congratulations to real-life Burns for managing to pull the biggest con of them all, aka convincing Hollywood that he is a Legitimate Actor (ditto convincing the world he can write and direct films, an activity he's arguably even worse at than acting); the truth is that Burns is a flavorless, black hole of talent, a hack vampire who sucks the life out of every scene he's in (aka every scene in the whole movie), incapable of handling even the most trivial of actorly tasks, incapable of making anything he does or says remotely interesting. Movies are already pushing their luck when they cast this motherfucker as Joe Sixpack but at least that's the role which best suits 'em; casting Burns as a suave shark is supremely dim-witted since the thought that this vanilla pudding could be a successful con man, the notion that Alien Burns could convince anyone of anything, is totally improbable. The fact that James Foley is feebleminded enough to cast him in the lead no less -- especially when he's crowded by people as talented (and wasted) as Luis Guzmán, Paul Giamatti, Raquel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Robert Forster and Dustin Hoffman (so Burns comes off even worse and we're left wondering why none of those other dude(t)s are at the forefront) -- makes me downright angry. Confidence is an overly cluttered and meandering film with too many characters fighting for space... which might be tolerable if they weren't also pulling the least interesting con imaginable, aka a corporate con. My attention was held by exactly three scenes: Hoffman's first two scenes (he's playing a mousy, jovial, febrile higher-up) and the sole instance a simple con is executed (set in a jewelry store), which -- by virtue of its modesty -- packs more intrigue than the rest of this rote movie combined. Does it surprise you that this one captivating con is ripped wholesale from Mamet's brilliant House of Games?

Return home.