Chicago, 1936. Two grifters named Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones - father of the voice of Darth Vader, James Earl Jones) play an old con trick on a seemingly innocent bystander and steal his money. Unfortunately, this bystander turns out to be an employee of a notoriously ruthless crime boss, Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Lonnegan is furious about this humiliation and has Coleman murdered and sends men after Hooker too. Hooker escapes and gets in contact with another friend of Coleman, Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). Together, Hooker and Gondorff develop an elaborate plot to bankrupt and gain vengeance on Lonnegan.
Doug says...
The Sting is both fitting and an odd addition to the ‘70s films we’ve seen so far. It has the same grittiness and real-life elements - we see men in vests, unmarried sex and tatty rundown burlesque clubs - but what it brings to the table is a welcome slice of lightness and fun. It’s not a comedy by any means and there’s no laugh out loud moments, but nor are there millions of tortured close-ups of drug-addled gangsters’ faces. It’s refreshing.
It does suffer slightly from a modern point of view. And this is for one simple reason - Hustle. The BBC show starring Adrian Lester and a whole host of cracking actors, featured a bunch of Robin Hood-esque con artists wreaking havoc on London, and over the course of several seasons shows the inner workings of most cons. And the twists-and-turns style of The Sting is marred by the fact that a modern viewer who has seen Hustle will actually be ahead of the game. I saw the ending coming and so what would have thoroughly surprised 1973’s cinema audience actually came as no great shock to me.
Having said that it’s still a pleasure to watch. Paul Newman is oh so handsome and charismatic to boot and he leads a strong cast including Robert Redford as the wronged con-artist seeking revenge, Eileen Brennan as Billie, the tough no-nonsense owner of the local bar/brothel and a tiny but fun cameo from Sally Kirkland as Crystal - a fame-seeking burlesque dancer. It’s a fairly well paced film with lots of examples of cons, and jaunty piano music throughout which negates some of the nastier moments (we do see quite a few people shot in the film).
It’s not a masterpiece, but it is great fun, and such a welcome relief from the stodgy dark films of recent times. I’ve actually had a bit of a revelation about why I don’t really like the ‘70s so far. It’s not that they’re dark films - my favourite film is La Vie En Rose, an almost unrelentingly bleak biopic of Edith Piaf - but it’s the turgic, stolid tone that they seem to take. They are bound up in their own darkness, and it all feels a bit too try-hard art-house to me. But I imagine this is because they were actually breaking new ground, and ground-breaking pieces tend to be a bit overdone because they have no precedents to guide them. I should be a bit more forgiving on the 1970s films, but working from a place where we have built upon them, I find them often a tad insufferable in their abject misery. But The Sting was a pleasant change - mixing lightness and slick choreography into the mix.
Highlight
The moment when Billie carries a tray of drinks into the con-artists’ private den, having just warded police off from bursting in there. She moves at a normal pace, yet you can feel the tension underlying the scene as she needs to get in there and warn them. Great, understated moments that do so much for the viewer.
Lowlight
The film is made of fairly short scenes and yet feels a little longer than its two hour running time. I wonder if it would have benefited from a cut to 90 minutes…
Mark
7/10
Paul says...
We continue through our crime spree (so to speak) but, as Doug says, with a greater sense of fun. If you like the 2001 remake of Ocean’s Eleven in which George Clooney and Brad Pitt gain vengeance on a nefarious casino owner by robbing his vaults, then you’ll enjoy this earlier tale of two buddies doing similarly criminal shenanigans to bring down a Bad Man. In fact, it’s so similar that Paul Newman could pass for George Clooney’s father and now I’m completely certain that Brad Pitt had facial surgery to look exactly like Robert Redford. The resemblances between the two generations of actors is uncanny.
The Sting benefits from tremendous charisma from the two leading men, and if you’ve never heard of them you can just Google search “Actors your mum is in love with” and they’ll pop right up. Newman and Redford had worked together before along with director George Roy Hill in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They were good friends, played pranks on each other behind camera, and as a result a natural chemistry shines through.
I also really enjoyed the villain of the piece, Doyle Lonnegan played by Robert Shaw who we last saw in this project as the mercurial Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. His character is more mannered here, but what I enjoyed was that he’s not a super-humanly capable villain who is seemingly impossible to defeat. He repeatedly becomes a victim of his hot temper and lust for money. In other words, he’s a typically immoral businessman but with so many skeletons in his closet that it’s a delight to see Newman and Redford bring him down. The scenes in the fake betting parlour are especially tense and amusing. Lonnegan is under the impression that he is betting on winning horses. In actual fact, the races have already happened, and every single person from the bartender to the radio announcer to the other gamblers, are actors in league with our heroes. The big kick the audience gets from The Sting is being in on the act with our handsome heroes, and seeing a complete arsehole be made to look like a fool. No matter how much of a good person you are, any audience member enjoys seeing someone become victim of an intelligent con- as long as the con artist is attractive and charismatic of course.
The intricate story-telling also kept me hooked. There are cons within cons, unexpected betrayals and reveals to discover that someone is not who they claim, or not in league with who we thought. A couple of times, after spending two minutes looking up IMDB facts about the film, I found that when I returned my attention to the film, I had missed an important plot point very easily. The film is fast-paced and complex, so if you do give it a go I’d advise concentrating for the full two hours to keep up.
I can’t fault this film too majorly. A niggling point is that I didn’t have a huge amount of emotional investment. The Sting may be thrilling and I enjoyed working out how the characters were going to double-cross each other, but I didn’t care much if the heroes succeeded or not. Any wins they gain throughout the story garnered more of a “oh I see” reaction from me rather than ecstatic cheers. This is a minor failing though - overall, The Sting is addictive and exciting and a breath of fresh air in a movie era fraught with darkly-lit depravity and despondence (indeed, another nominee this year for Best Picture was The Exorcist and you don’t get much darker than that).
Highlight
Gondorff’s Poker game with Lonnegan and his associates is a great set of scenes. Newman is evidently having the time of his life pretending to be drunk and putting the arrogant crime boss down at every opportunity.
Lowlight
Perhaps we needed more urgency in the good guys’ motivations towards bringing down the villain. Lonnegan could have been given more villainous actions to make us hate him more to gain more emotional interest.
Mark
9/10
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