Home > Movies > H > Hoax, The > Reviews


Rating:
Director Lasse Hallström continues his streak of underperforming but critically respected films with this adaptation of a notorious con man's memoir. Delayed releases for An Unfinished Life (2005) and The Hoax hamstrung their box-office prospects, while Casanova (2005) came and went in a flash from domestic screens, despite a stellar cast and a nimble if perhaps overly PG script. It's a shame the director isn't enjoying more of a mid-career winning streak because his work is top-shelf, and never more so than with this deeply funny, yet psychologically disturbing portrait of a liar who nearly pulls off one of the century's biggest literary scams. Richard Gere turns in one of his career-best performances as Clifford Irving, by turns desperate, needy, charming, and blustering, and rising to a new level of ability in every scene he's appearing opposite the impressive Alfred Molina as Irving's quivering, nerve-wracked partner in crime, Dick Suskind. Their relationship is the film's true heart and it's a pure joy to behold them riffing off each other as their onscreen friendship unravels. The other characters are less richly defined, with class actors Stanley Tucci, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Eli Wallach, and Zeljko Ivanek given a moment here and there but not much else to do. The Hoax tries to be clever by cutting a third-act story development both ways, implying it's equally possible that an unexpected plot twist could have be real or could have been imagined by the increasingly unhinged Irving, but while this annoying attempt at evenhandedness only dilutes the power of the narrative, the overall film is a thoroughly entertaining chronicle of a little-remembered scandal that represents solid, if unjustly ignored work from its talented filmmaker and cast. Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Browse More Movies:
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z