Grifting is a lot like film making. Success at either relies on precise timing, charisma, and slight of hand. In either scenario, the true mark of talent is the patron's willingness to accept the subterfuge. A truly profitable grift is a beautiful thing. Like a well made film, it has balance and poetry.
Matchstick Men, Ridley Scott's latest, stands as a testament to this belief. Nicolas Cage stars as Roy, an OCD-rattled veteran con-man. His young partner, the brash but savvy Frank, is portrayed by budding star Sam Rockwell. Together they work the middle class urbanites of Any City, USA, earning small pots on short cons and insurance fraud schemes. When Roy is reunited with the teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) he didn't even know he had, the sheltered cocoon of his neurotic life is thrown into a furious state of flux. Here begins the familiar ballet of unlikely father and rambunctious daughter. But, as in the con game, appearances are deceiving.
Matchstick Men deftly weaves together two typical Hollywood stories centered on the same quirky crook. In one corner there is the tale of redemption for an estranged father; in the other looms Roy and Frank's potential big score, hanging on the outcome of a risky long con. While this may seem a pedestrian, off-beat crime drama, it's all part of the balance in Ridley Scott's con. Where Matchstick Men distinguishes itself is with the guile it employs, working its way toward a staggering conclusion. Like any great scam, a shrewdly constructed façade hides the true genius that comes shining through in the end. As the greatest con artist of all, Scott draws his audience in of their own accord, and sends them away feeling as though they've been had by a master.
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