Confidence film review

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CONFIDENCE

"If you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose," declares the too slick grifter Jake Vig (Edward Burns). He could have been talking about Confidence, except he's wrong about the last bit. With time and money at a premium, anyone wasting both going to see this heap of nothing stands to lose quite a bit.

If Ed Burns thought that restoring his first name to its full length would make people take him more seriously, then he should think again. A more effective way would be to become a better actor. His casual, smug approach has served him well to date, but it belies any substance or range which puts him alongside Ben Affleck as someone with little to offer other than a pretty face.

It would be harsh to lay all of the blame for Confidence's shortcomings at Burns' door. The problems begin with a script too concerned with appearing to be clever than actually providing any drama. At the heart of all crime thrillers is hopefully an absorbing crime; one that at least provides some intrigue or originality, but the central con in Confidence lacks both. Instead it relies on a collection of comic characters and an unquestioning belief on the part of its audience.

Vig and his unlikely crew have been successfully fleecing their marks with few problems until the day they inadvertently rip off a violent underworld figure known as the King (Dustin Hoffman). Delivering such hard-boiled lines as "Sometimes, Jake, style can get you killed," with a panoply of ticks, Hoffman comes across as more afflicted than threatening. It's no wonder Vig isn't scared and so, rather than pay the King back, Vig agrees to team up for their next job.

The essence of a good con is deception. It's something director James Foley has unintentionally done a masterful job of, as although things seem to be set in the real world, everything appears fake from the characters, to the dialogue to the locations. Vig and his cohorts, which include Gordo (Paul Giamatti), Miles (Brian Van Holt) and Lily (Rachel Weisz) strut around with forced bonhomie and sunglasses trying to look purposeful and savvy rather than the faintly ridiculous figures they actually are. Though even they are upstaged by a pair of buffoonish rogue policeman (Luis Guzman and Donal Logue) and Andy Garcia as a vengeful special agent.

In the end their scam is of less interest than the confidence trick perpetrated on the audience.