Confidence is one of those hit and miss movies. When it works it is brilliant however there are too many inherent flaws to make it worth recommending. Principally the biggest draw is Dustin Hoffmans performance. His character, the mobster "King", a sleaze bag with a volcanic personality, reminded me a lot of the character he played in the understated 1970's classic crime/drama Straight Time (which if you have not seen you really should check out. The scenes of Hoffman simultaneously threatening and coming on to Ed Burns are tense and darkly humorous.At other times the movie tries to be quirky and with its jaunty musical score gives the film a frustratingly uneven tone. Edward Burns is fine as the leader of the scam artist crew but i didn't buy into the other crew members one of whom should really stick to comedy. The addition of Rachael Weisz to the crew failed to impress me. When you consider strong female roles that make an impression in for example The Grifters and House of Games, Weisz really comes up short. The snaring of their mark for the sting to pay off King does not ring true. The promise of a honey trap is floated but the banker does not even have to sleep with Weisz in order to be suckered in and this is not believable. Andy Garcia pops up in an extended cameo to harass the two goonish cops who are helping and skimming Ed Burns but again this facet is played mostly for laughs.The ending was entirely predictable when it should have left you guessing and again not enough Hoffman.

A nice cast and clever direction give this tale of a handful of low lifes conning a major bank out of much money a lot of zest. Edward Burns with his geometrical proboscis has an interesting high-pitched hoarse voice. The lilt in Paul Giamatti's speech is bewitching. Dustin Hoffman as the gum-chewing hyperactive big shot may have the juiciest part, but everyone loses out on succulence to diminutive but amply bosomed Rachel Weisz. She's a knock out. There are fine actors even in relatively small roles -- Andy Garcia, for instance, and Robert Forster.Anyone who wants to see an example of good classical movie making should watch the scene in which Weisz picks up John Carroll Lynch at a bar and invites him to sit at a table with the gang of con men, who seduce him into playing their game. Carroll's expressions of, first, bewilderment, then burgeoning interest, are nearly perfect, but they had to be captured on film my a director who knew his business and an editor, ditto.Unfortunately, the plot looks entertaining but it's so confusing, with so many twists, new developments, and betrayals -- some of them fakes -- that I was lost. Maybe you need to know a little more about finance than I do. I don't know what you have to do to "start up" a company, and while listening to Burns and the others explaining it in the simplest possible terms, I felt at times as if I were back in high school algebra class. God, how I hated algebra.But -- alright, sometimes the plot left me in a cloud of whirling dust, but it's all done with such panache that I watched it all the way through, even if I didn't understand it. The tempo is agitato. There are points of impressive humor embedded in the story. And I kept waiting for Rachel Weisz to remove some of her hampering outer garments. Burns is an engaging guy too -- handsome, but not repulsively so, if you know what I mean, and his accent is so metropolitan New Yorkish that it sounds like he grew up next door. He keeps saying things like "leave it up to he and I," which is an ungrammatical form called a hyperlearnedism. I kind of like that touch, whether it came from Burns or from Doug Jung, the writer. It's the kind of thing a small time hood like Burns' character WOULD say.

Seeing as this is a movie about con artists you have to know that things may not always be as they seem to be. It's safe to assume that somewhere along the way somebody's getting the rug pulled out from underneath him. Somebody's getting conned. Unfortunately in this instance the audience is getting somewhat conned as well. It's a movie of tricks, a movie which wants to impress you with how smart it is. But it's not nearly as smart as those involved in making it would like to believe. It's all too predictable and thus in the end not nearly as dramatic as would be hoped. As any good con artist movie would this one has all kinds of twists and turns to try and throw you off. But you can see where this is headed a mile away. The movie tries to fool you but it telegraphs its ultimate destination very early on. The big surprises are ultimately not surprising at all. And thus the movie fails.If the story ultimately lets you down you would hope that the movie at least works as a good bit of fun. But we are denied even that pleasure. It's rather dull, moments of true excitement are very few and far between. The whole movie suffers from a lack of personality which is best personified by the lead character of Jake Vig, played by Edward Burns. This is the character at the heart of the movie, it's his story, he even serves as the film's narrator. And the character just doesn't work. Burns obviously was going for cool, calm and collected in his portrayal of Jake. In that he succeeds but in doing so he has created a character that's rather boring. There's no spark to this guy, no reason why the audience should identify with or care about him. There's nothing memorable about him. On the other end of the spectrum there's Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of the crime lord known only as The King. This character is, to put it mildly, an eccentric fellow. A little too eccentric to take seriously. We're supposed to find him menacing but that's quite a stretch. It's another key character which just doesn't work. Which leaves very little left to potentially salvage the movie. Some of the supporting performances, notably those of Paul Giamatti and Rachel Weisz, work better but they are not nearly enough to prop this movie up. The key characters don't connect, there's very little in the way of fun or entertainment, and after jerking you around all the way through the story lands with a resounding thud. Pretty much a total misfire.

A group of con artists plans to swindle millions out of a banker while dealing with a crime boss who wants a cut. Another in a long line of con movies, this one is stylishly directed by Foley. The problem is that Foley's style is extremely annoying, constantly calling attention to himself with his distracting camera-work. The script is anemic, with the dialog relying too much on a certain four-letter word. Burns plays the leader of the con gang, but lacks the charisma to carry this film. Weisz is a capable actress but is pretty much wasted in an inconsequential role. The only bright spot is Hoffman, who is quite amusing as a crime kingpin named "King."