When Revenge is Best Served with Style
Need to get revenge on a murderous crime boss? Try elaborate confidence games and ragtime music! At least that’s the approach Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) takes after his partner gets killed by enforcer Loretta Numbers for scamming a numbers runner connected to crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw).
Hooker seeks out Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), a master con artist who’s “retired” in the same way that Michael Jordan was “retired” – which is to say, not really. Gondorff, despite nursing the kind of hangover that would kill a lesser man, agrees to help set up the ultimate con: a fake betting parlor designed to separate Lonnegan from his money and his smugness simultaneously.
What follows is a masterclass in the long con, featuring more moving parts than a Swiss watch factory. Gondorff infiltrates Lonnegan’s high-stakes poker game on a train, winning big with cheating that’s so obvious it would make a Vegas casino blush. This gets Lonnegan’s attention and, more importantly, his anger – something Gondorff and Hooker plan to leverage like a financial advisor with inside information.
The duo assembles a team of con artists who make Ocean’s Eleven look like amateur hour. They create an entirely fake off-track betting parlor, complete with a cast of characters that would make Broadway jealous. There’s Kid Twist (Harold Gould) posing as a Western Union clerk, giving out “sure thing” horse racing tips that are actually delayed results. The Erickson (Eileen Brennan) provides the female touch, while Eddie Niles (John Heffernan) plays the part of a disgruntled betting parlor employee willing to help Lonnegan “cheat” the house.
Meanwhile, FBI Agent Polk (Dana Elcar) is pursuing Hooker for killing a pursuer who was actually offed by someone else (it’s complicated), and corrupt cop Lieutenant Snyder (Charles Durning) is trying to get his cut of whatever action Hooker’s running. It’s like a chess game where half the pieces are actually checkers in disguise.
The con builds to a magnificent crescendo involving a fake shooting, a betting parlor raid that’s actually staged, and Lonnegan losing half a million dollars (in 1936 money!) to a horse that already lost. The beauty of the con is that Lonnegan can’t even go to the police because everything he tried to do was illegal anyway.
The Verdict
What I Love:
- Newman and Redford’s chemistry that makes other screen partnerships look like blind dates
- David S. Ward’s script that’s more intricately plotted than most retirement plans
- Marvin Hamlisch’s adaptation of Scott Joplin’s ragtime music that makes white-collar crime seem downright jaunty
- Period details so perfect you’ll check your calendar to make sure it’s not 1936
- A plot twist ending that M. Night Shyamalan probably studies like religious text
What Could’ve Been Better:
- Might make you overly suspicious of any gambling establishment
- Will definitely affect your ability to play poker with a straight face
- Could make you question why your revenge plans aren’t this stylish
“The Sting” pulls off the ultimate con: making audiences root for criminals while tapping their feet to ragtime music. It won seven Academy Awards, proving that sometimes crime does pay, as long as it’s fictional and features really good-looking people.
Rating: 5 out of 5 marked cards
P.S. – If someone named Kid Twist offers you horse racing tips, maybe check the timestamps first.
