Confidence (2003)

Directed by: James Foley | 138 minutes | action, thriller | Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Edward Burns, Andy Garcia, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, Morris Chestnut, Donal Logue, Louis Guzman

Foley has managed to select an extensive and skilled cast for his film ‘Confidence’. Unfortunately, despite this fact, the film doesn’t really impress. The settings, hip music and sometimes surprising elements with which Foley links scenes together make this film very pleasant to watch, but at the same time seem intended to disguise the further superficiality of the film. The actors play strong, but the characters are not really convincing as top criminals. Dustin Hoffman as the widely feared mafia boss ‘The King’ takes the cake. His sexual tendencies, posture and motor skills are more laughable than frightening.

In addition, the characters are not developed at all. We see what they say and what they do and that’s it. We learn nothing about their background or motivation to get involved in the scam circuit. But perhaps that is not necessary given the subtitle of the film: ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about the money.’ And that’s all the characters in the film are doing: as quickly as possible, and making as much money as possible.

The film as a whole comes across as a mix of ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ (music and style) and ‘Pulp Fiction’, with ‘Confidence’ certainly not being able to match Tarantino’s masterpiece in terms of dialogue. Where the conversations are intended to be humorous, they do not show up and are rather weak or sometimes even cliché. And of course real criminals use the ‘F-word’ as often as possible.

The story itself is told at a brisk pace, and even requires some attention from the viewer. The ending of the film also takes a surprising turn. Foley knows how to create a beautiful image of the world of the scam artists with all the style elements, but to speak with the words of ‘The King’; ‘sometimes style can get you killed’.