Friday, 15 September 2017

To be with another woman - that is French. To be caught - that is American.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Chosen by me from netflix options as I used to love this film when I was younger 
but hadn't revisited in probably over twenty years.


I think the most surprising thing about this film is how few laughs there actually are.
The first act is a little whimsical perhaps but just about the only joke involves repeatedly pushing a woman into a pot plant gently.
There is a lot more obvious attempts as Caine and Martin start to work together, and then in opposition, but this section has not aged well and is full of ableist stuff that sits uncomfortably with me now.
Caine and Martin (looking quite a bit like an contemporary Harrison Ford) are on fine form generally if a little broad but Glenne Headly is perfect as a sweet naive 'soap queen' with just enough going on behind the eyes to make the fairly obvious twist work even though plotwise I'm not sure it does (they throw in a line at the end to justify it and the film is breezy enough to get away with it I guess).
I have a real soft spot for con-artist movies (and given their ubiquity I'm obviously not the only one) some minor (the stakes are pretty low), some major (that long section with Martin playing an idiot brother) so I still enjoyed it in a low key manner but the actual con mechanics here are almost non-existent.
Martin would go on to have a further stab at con-artistry in another film The Spanish Prisoner, that I also havent watched for a long time, that I recall being very, very good - I wonder if that will have aged better?

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