Ed Burns has "Confidence" in this 2003 film also starring Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giametti, and Donal Logue.
Burns is Jake Vig, a professional grifter who, with the help of his usual crew, has just swindled a ton of money from a mark. Unfortunately for Jake and his group of merry men -- which includes two LA cops - the mark was an accountant for a crime boss, Winston King. Not a nice guy. And two of Jake's men wind up dead.
Jake doesn't have much choice but to go to King and offer to pull off another huge job that will not only make King a fortune but pay him back. He chooses a banker, Morgan Price, and for this job, he brings in Lily (Weisz). Then Jake finds out an old Federal nemesis of his (Garcia) is following his every move and determined to bring him down.
For what it is, "Confidence" is an okay movie with good performances. It doesn't break any new ground but it's entertaining. And of course, it has the ubiquitous twists. Nowadays there's no suspense or thriller without a few twists. I will say, one I could predict, the other I didn't.
Confidence
2003
Action / Crime / Thriller
Plot summary
Jake Vig leads a small Los Angeles based team of grifters, each member who has his specific role in each con: Jake is the main man, Miles the adversary, Big Al the scared innocent bystander, and Gordo the dead shooting victim. He also has in his pockets crooked LAPD detectives Lloyd Whitworth and Omar Manzano who basically play themselves as needed. Beyond getting the money, the basic goal of each con is to ensure the mark is so scared by what has happened - usually being an accomplice in a "murder" - that he won't come back looking for the money. Jake learns the hard way that their latest mark, Louis Dolby, who they fleeced for $150,000, was carrying money for a criminal named King, who takes a no prisoners approach in getting even, he who knows who stole his money. Instead of returning the $150,000 to King, money which he no longer has anyway, Jake convinces King to parlay that money and a bit more into a bigger con against a mark of King's choice, that person being banker Morgan Price, a second generation mobster. The total take for this con is to be $5 million. Beyond co-opting a couple of inside people for this con, King wants one of his own men inserted - Lupus - and Jake also enlists the work of a female pickpocket he recently ran across named Lily, to who he is attracted. During the process, a small wrinkle occurs when they learn that Special Agent Gunther Butan with the US Customs Agency, an old adversary of Jake's, is currently after him, which means they either have to call off the international mission or watch more carefully their movements, with Jake not to be the one to carry any money across the border. But with a group of con artists working for the first time with new players, a question becomes are there any inside cons at play, especially in this case where Jake has more of a personal stake than usual.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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derivative caper film
this tried to be clever and failed, tediously...
I'm sure a lot of people enjoyed this movie and there's nothing wrong with that. But this-tik-tac-everybody's-in-on-it flick just didn't make much sense and partly due to that, it makes for a very disappointing pastime.
They tried, boy did they try... The over styled acting was annoying (Paul Giamatti leading the bunch) and almost made it a b-movie. But that's where the dialog came in to finish the job. Not to mention the soundtrack which was a blunt rip off.
This is one of those con-movies which in the end could have had God in on it to save the day. It is such an amazingly bad story that they had to use close to 20 plot twists to try to fool the audience that it would hold up. What a mess
Actually, the only thing that made the plot work was Andy Garcia being in on the scheme, like we didn't suspect that coming. The fact that they had to compare the cleverness of their scheme to complicated chess gaming to convince the viewer, made it painfully obvious that it really wasn't.
Confidence could have been an OK-movie if it just didn't try so damn hard to be what oceans11 was. It's exactly like Dustin Hoffman said: 'sometimes style can get u killed' Apparently, it can kill a movie too
4/10
great actor doing solid work but movie lacks tension
Travis (Morris Chestnut) is holding a gun on Jake Vig (Edward Burns) and the movie goes back 3 weeks earlier. Jake and his crew Big Al (Louis Lombardi),Gordo (Paul Giamatti),Miles (Brian Van Holt),Whitworth (Donal Logue) and Manzano (Luis Guzmán) trick Lionel Dolby (Leland Orser) out of a suitcase full of cash. The problem is that Lionel was suppose to deliver that money to the infamous Mr. King (Dustin Hoffman). To even the score for King, Jake agrees to con Morgan Price (Robert Forster). Lily (Rachel Weisz) is the mysterious pickpocket.
This is an amazing group of actors doing solid work. It is a con movie where everybody is working an angle and everything is fake. It's a writing exercise and the main problem is that director James Foley is unable to deliver any tension. Edward Burns may be too cool for school. He needs to show a little fear so that the audience can feel the danger. It's a bit of style and the traditional con mystery. However it doesn't get the heart pumping.