The Sting (1973)

Over the past few days, I’ve found that when someone asks me for a movie recommendation, my first question is, “Have you seen The Sting? Paul Newman, Robert Redford?” The duo is more famous for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, but if you ask me, this one has finer performances makes for better viewing too.

Everybody likes a good ‘heist’ movie. From Ocean’s Eleven to The Italian Job, these are the few times we find ourselves rooting for the thief. Sure, they’re rogues and scoundrels, but they treat their profession like an art and to see a grand plan being pulled off perfectly is an absolute thrill.

The Sting revolves around a ‘talented, but small-time’ conman named Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford in a role that you will associate him with for the rest of your life), whose gang inadvertently steals the money of a criminal banker, Doyle Lonnegan (played by a forgettable Robert Shaw).

The dangerous Lonnegan sets his men on them and one of the gang members gets killed, but not before giving Hooker the number of an old friend who is regarded as the master of the long con.

A vengeful Hooker makes his way to meet Henry Gondroff (Paul Newman in one of his best performances, epitomising the movie’s tagline: ‘All it takes is a little confidence’). On hearing about his friend’s death, Gondroff and Hooker decide to embark on the greatest and most dangerous con: rob Lonnegan of a massive sum of money.

Gondroff rounds up his old gang of con-artists, each with their special skill, and sets off to hatch an elaborate scheme. Given the high stakes and the dangerous reputation of their target, they need to deceive Lonnegan and take his money without him ever suspecting a thing. It’s a long con, so it requires patience, time and an incredible amount of hard work and investment; but with rich rewards!

Meanwhile, Lonnegan gets tired of the incompetence of his dirty cop – the pitbull-like Snyder – in locating Hooker, and so decides to put his best mercenary on the job.

The plot gets thicker as the FBI pulls up Snyder and blackmails him into giving them Hooker when he finds him. Agent Polk’s real target, though, is Gondroff, who has evaded him for quite a few years now and he doesn’t plan on letting the conman escape this time.

And slap-bang in the middle of all this, Hooker falls for the waitress at his regular diner and a romantic pursuit ensues.

Through the course of The Sting, there’s a change in the relationship between the wily Gondroff and the arrogant Hooker, slipping into a mutual admiration, with a bit of a mentor-student dynamic. The movie is filled with great dialogues and little ironies, such as Gondroff warning Hooker throughout the movie that revenge doesn’t make anything any better, and yet stepping out of retirement for this one big sting on the man who killed his friend.

Hooker is clearly the protagonist in this, as Redford digs deep to come out with a performance that matches the much more experienced Newman. When you think Newman, you think ‘Fast Eddie Felson’; and after this movie, when you think Redford, you will think ‘Johnny Hooker’.

And yes, no review about The Sting could be complete without the mention of its greatest contribution: the immortal theme. I didn’t know that this tune (The Entertainer by Scott Joplin) originated in the movie till I watched it and read up on it. It’s one that can’t be placed immediately, so it’s best to hear it here or play the YouTube video below.

So there we have it: Two of the greatest actors and one of the best teams in the history of cinema; a grand sting to rob one of the richest and most dangerous men in America by the greatest long con artist in the country and the brightest upcoming star in that field; a hitman and a dirty cop, hot on their trail; an FBI agent obsessed with hunting down ‘the one that got away’; a budding romance; and an immortal background score. What more could you ask for in a movie?

Rating: 8.5/10