This being a genre film in the 2010s, the movie also attempts some meta-referential winkery. Grifter terminology is in abundance, like the "Toledo Panic Button" (taking down a partner to avoid being caught in a lie). The Sting: She swipes a mark's credit card, an associate buys up a storm, then they return it to his wallet before he's the wiser. The early scenes where Nicky shows Jess the ropes are lithe, breezy fun in the vein of The Wolf Of Wall Street, and she's quite likable here, even though she has little more to do than seem like she's up to something. Robbie has a rising profile, fresh off her role as the tart high-life wife in It falls to a fellow thief coming in from the cold named Jess (Margot Robbie, an Australian beauty 22 years Smith's junior) to soften him up. He's as emotionally distant as he is great at his job, which is a natural side effect of the "when people get too close to you, snatch their watches" line of work. Nicky leads a team of thieves into crowded public spaces for tightly choreographed pickpocket operations, and not even those wallets chained to pants are safe. Hitch mode as small-time grifter Nicky, a man in his element with a swagger in his step. The always-charming Will Smith is back on solid ground with this starring role, his first since 2013's already infamous father-son sci-fi bomb (Crazy, Stupid, Love.) keep us only just abreast enough of the proceedings to sense that slippery games are afoot, thus building a fun if forgettable romp through a charismatic criminal underworld. Writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa But when the audience is kept in the dark, the plan will go off without a hitch.įocus- not to be confused with Focus Features, although someone really should have noticed how similar the logos looked - works this rule overtime, layering blueprints on top of blueprints, spelling out one operation only to pivot into a different one at the last second. There is a golden rule of movie plans that goes double for con and heist films: When the characters spell out their playbook ahead of time for the audience ("I'll pose as a dot-com billionaire while you rewire the security cameras"), something will inevitably go wrong.
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