Intermission: Con men keep audience guessing in 'Confidence'

Jim Wunderle is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

"Style can get you killed ..."

So says the crime boss known as "The King" to Jake Vig, the slick young leader of a gang of con men who have inadvertently bilked a sucker who turned out to be an accountant on the King's payroll. Oops! You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and cons.

In James Foley's new film, "Confidence," one can learn a lot about the importance of laying plans. Jake says that a good con man, like a good chess player, has already gone over every possible move in his mind and, essentially, the game is over before it even begins. That's the way it should be. Sometimes things don't always work out the way they have been planned. Or do they?

That's part of the sheer fun in watching a good con movie ("The Sting," "House of Games," "The Grifters," "The Usual Suspects") unfold. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's conning who and if one or more of the people involved are playing both sides of the fence. Director Foley and screenwriter Doug Jung have crafted "Confidence" so that it fits the genre nicely. Questions about what is really going on stay up in the air until the very end.

Jake is played by Edward Burns, an always affable actor who has a lot of the same qualities that "The Grifters" star John Cusack uses so well. After Jake and his crew pull off their latest scam, one of the team turns up murdered. It's at this time they find out they picked the wrong guy a guy with big time connections to the King to bilk.

The King, played by Dustin Hoffman, is an odd duck indeed. Ruthless and short tempered, he's the only crime figure ever in film to suffer from adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Hoffman is used to playing quirky characters Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy," Raymond Babbitt in "Rainman," Louis Dega in "Papillon" and the King ranks up there with the quirkiest. He auditions strippers for his club and gives them some hilarious advice about performing certain acts "tastefully" obsesses over getting the right number of espresso shots in his cup and takes his business and his money very seriously.

Jake realizes he and his crew are in deep trouble, but he's also unable to return the King's cash. So he comes up with a plan. He sets up a meeting with the King and offers to pull a con game for him. The crew is going after a big fish, Morgan Price, a rival of the King who runs an investment-banking firm. Jake has the plan and they're looking at $5 million, more than enough to pay the King back and still have a tidy sum for themselves.

The King agrees, but for insurance he insists that one of his men, Lupus, tag along and become part of the crew. Jake also enlists the help of Lilly, a pickpocket he meets as she's lifting wallets in a local bar. Lilly, played by Rachel Weisz, is utilized here as an interesting plot device. Since she and Lupus are new members, the other guys (and the viewer) are uneasy about trusting either one 100 percent. We pretty much know where Lupus' loyalties lie, but Lilly is harder to read. The character makes for a good deal of the tension throughout the second half of the film.

After deciding who the easiest mark will be at Price's bank, the wheels start to turn and the con begins.

Side characters include a couple of crooked cops who Jake uses as needed for inside police protection. Every movie goer knows that crooked cops are far down on the list of characters who can be trusted, even compared to con men who tend to follow the "honor among thieves" rule. When FBI agent Gunther Butan, Jake's longtime nemesis, shows up with incriminating evidence against the cops, it appears they are going to rat out Jake to save their own hides.

Things aren't going well and midway through the plan, Jake decides to call the whole thing off. Lilly wants her cut of the money anyway and Jake, still not entirely convinced of her trustworthiness, sends her on her way. Hell knows no fury like that of a woman scorned and when the woman is also a professional grifter, the fury can get quite intense.

The story is told in a series of flashbacks as Jake is explaining how the thing went down to a man holding a gun at the back of his head. Jake is to be executed as soon as the entire tale is told. The King needs to know these things. While we think we know the eventual outcome, having seen the ending as the film opens, one should remember: This is a con game movie.

I love movies like this, and while "The Sting" will always be at the top, films like "Confidence" come along every so often that can take their place comfortably on the list.