Der große Bluff

The Hoax is a screen adaptation of the true story of one of the most daring, bold, and intricate confidence schemes ever plotted. As a long-time fan of heists, cons, and trickery, I already knew the story before seeing the film, and so seeing the movie, I judged the portrayal rather than the story itself. Lasse Hallstrom does not make a great film, but he definitely makes an enjoyable film. Certain scenes aren't quite filmed the most powerful way they could be. Clean, nice, standard cinematography is used in scenes that have less atmosphere because of it. Other scenes, in particular the scenes of theft, lying, drama, and other intense things provoked by the dangerously dishonest mind of Clifford Irving, are given a thrilling, extremely exciting pins-and-needles feeling. In terms of the story, I learned a lot about it that I didn't know that amazed and impressed me, mostly involving the influence the scheme inadvertently had politically.

Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving well enough, but the entire time, I kept thinking of different actors who would've been much more becoming and much more intense. Clifford Irving was a man of dark, magnetic, manipulative vigor and depth. Gere plays him more dryly, as though Irving was virtually cool and carefree rather than coolly masking that intensity.

Alfred Molina, a scene-stealer as always, upstages Gere greatly as his nervous friend and partner in crime who is made to do all the high-risk dirty work, which translates into hilarity on screen.

The Hoax is a wonderful story and a good movie. If it had a different lead and broader scope in the directing, it could've been a wonderful movie, too.

'The Hoax' is an endlessly charming and witty film, blending comedy with drama for great and successful results. Richard Gere is at the top of his game as he commands the screen, prosthetic nose included. Lasse Hallstrom's, whose films included 'Chocolate' and 'The Cider House Rules', keen sense of direction keeps the film fresh and engaging. It ultimately makes for a genuinely pleasant experience and one of the year's better pictures.

Desperate for success and wealth, Clifford Irving is about to pull off the hoax of the century. Set in the 1970s, Irving has pitched and sold his idea of a Howard Hughes biography to a premiere publishing company. Problem is, none of it's true. Irving, with his friend Dick Susskind at his side, will spin an intricate web of lies as he sets out to compile a fraud biography of Hughes and set-up staged interviews with the wealthy recluse. He soon becomes so deep in all of his lies that it seems inconceivable that he'll find his way out. But with each twist and turn, Irving matches with one of his own.

What makes 'The Hoax' work? It appears to be nearly flawless. Director Lasse Hallstrom keeps viewers in the moment with a nice, speedy pace. And so 'The Hoax' never wears out its welcome. It's such a quirky and original project that entertains without taking itself too seriously. It's light, witty humor mixed with dramatic effect to create what is at times a film with a dual personality, but it works out just right. 'The Hoax' has an intelligence that's sharper than most, keeping the elaborate and offbeat heist cleverly afloat rather than becoming dull and over worn. An outrageously true story of an outrageously true crime.

You may say that 'The Hoax' ultimately works because of one man, and that's Richard Gere. His best performance in years, Gere commands the screen as the man behind the heist (and nose). He's sharp, humorous, tragic, and flawed. The whole package. He almost forces you to emotionally invest in his character, because he's almost too charming not to. You'll find yourself rooting for him and his cause. It's one of the best performances of the year. Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, and Marcia Gay Harden all benefit from a great script. Molina stars as the humorously bumbling sidekick who possesses what Gere does not: a conscious. Davis is wonderful as the publishing agent, and while Harden's role doesn't present her with much screen time, she delivers a strong outing with what she's given.

'The Hoax' is a remarkably well-made, well-told account of a bizarre heist. The truth is stranger than fiction, and while it's wildly strange, it's wonderfully fun and silly yet tragic and serious when it has to be. 'The Hoax' is no hand-me-down of the heist genre, but rather a worthy and memorable addition. It's one of the year's best films, and no doubt you'll get a kick out of 'The Hoax'.

While fighting to enter in the theater where the press screening of the Roma Film Festival took place I hadn't great expectations for this film. The trailer looked so bad. More, I have never been much confident in Richard Gere's acting talents, but I must admit: in this film he proved me wrong. Appearing in almost every scene, not handsome as ever (he changed his hairline and his nose to look more like to the real Irving) Gere gives at last a good performance. I discovered he's also pretty good doing impressions - he does a great Howard Hughes, whose photos are constantly shown in the film and who, by the way, doesn't at all look like Di Caprio. Alfred Molina is also very good - hilariously funny, he's the best part in the movie. As for the supporting cast, there are pleasant cameos by Stanley Tucci and Eli Wallach. As for Richard Gere, I wasn't much confident in Lasse Hallström too - I found most of his films rather sappy. He did a good job in the Hoax though. The film has a nice "70s" look, with appropriate cinematography and a nice soundtrack as well. The one thing that didn't thoroughly convince me was the script: it started pretty well, but past the middle of the film it kinda loses its way and becomes more confused and repetitive. Still, a nice film. Gere fans, I'm sorry you will have to wait, since the opening in USA has been postponed to April, but the wait will be worth it. My rating is 7/10.

Lasse Halstrom isn't out, as a film-making, to make really extreme and probing insights into what goes into a prankster/forger like Clifford Irving. Maybe it's because he, like I, saw Orson Welles's film F For Fake, which covered similar ground and has the only substantial footage of Clifford Irving on record and in full bloom with his BS meter going sky-high. That film, overall, dug very deep into what is to have forgery, a hoax, as part of personality. Halstrom doesn't quite get that, but nevertheless he's made an entertaining mini-saga of a man- or rather men in this case- who went to the edge of credibility and almost got away with the whole shebang. His story, as covered as well in part in F for Fake, is about Irving's incredibly smart and incredibly stupid attempt at passing off as his own the autobiography of Howard Hughes, then the notoriously reclusive and nutty billionaire with his fingers in enterprises all over the world. He passes off Hughes's handwriting to the publishers and lawyers as his, even as it's really Irving who wrote it all, and even went so far as to have mock audio recordings of Irving AS Hughes to get down in the book via assistant Dick Suskind. As the walls seem to be closing in on their scam, as well as Irving's marriage, it goes as far as mass printings of the book Irving presents- until the 'real' Hughes makes a press conference call (call, of course), to disprove the book altogether as a hoax.

Halstrom surprisingly makes his film light and dark in tone, depending on what stage the story is in, and it's even fun at times to see Irving and Suskind go about their risk-taking maneuvers to get all documents and information they can on Hughes, as if it's guerrilla research. Then as the despair of constant lying increases, and the threat of capture and revelation is nearer, Halstrom makes it more like a paranoid thriller. This latter part may actually be not quite as convincing- so to speak of course, as one can't be sure entirely what's true or not in The Hoax- because, simply, one might not see Irving so much as a crazy person ala Hughes so much as a kind of strange artist-cum-professional at what he does: to make himself believe the BS before he even feeds it to others. Scenes like Irving getting caught by Hughes's "secret agents" in the middle of the night are not as striking as Halstrom might have intended, even as all the while the performances are still good. And the realm of placing the story in context of the times is hit or miss; it works, to be sure, when going into the Nixon administration sections because it's crucial to the story (and, according to some articles on the film, is possibly really accurate), though putting in the footage of Vietnam and protesters and so forth are sort of padding to environment and period. The music, costumes, locations (i.e. Las Vegas) and simple political ramifications make it enough.

This being said, The Hoax provides the audience with some very effective performances. Gere, under the right director, can be terrific, and this is one of his best performances in years, as he balances out Irving's higher aspirations of wealth and notoriety with his latter plunge into confusing his own personality with that of Hughes, with suspicions of everything or anyone around him. The filmmakers wisely don't make Irving very sympathetic, and Gere plays this for all it's worth with moments of charm, tension, and delusions of grandeur played out wonderfully. However, if Gere is good, Alfred Molina is better as Suskind, Irving's collaborator and the real behind-the-scenes guy who helps make Irving's fabrications all the more palatable, like hiding documents out of the Pentagon or flying to another country to mail an envelope. Suskind, unlike Irving, ends up dealing with the hoax with more of a psychological/moral burden, and it ends up weighing on his conscience like a brick. It might make Suskind the more conventional character in the movie, but Molina makes him very real and more of the tragic case than Gere's Irving. Molina's track record, at the least, remains untarnished. Other supporting players like Marcia Hay Harden, Julie Delpy, Eli Wallach, and Stanley Tucci are better than average here.

The Hoax is a good treat in this month's lot of schlock and big-budget trash by sticking close to making it an actor's movie, and sort of a bittersweet take on what a hoax does in such a grand scale as that of Howard Hughes, and what it does to a person the longer and more intense it goes on for.

Lasse Hallstrom has directed a compelling recreation of Clifford Irivng's novel in "Hoax". It is a retelling of the risky writing of the fake autobiography of Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire from Texas. Richard Gere gives a satisfying performance in his torn character of Clifford Irving himself. He is also convincing in his ability to show his simultaneous success and guiltless feelings in writing his so-called autobiography. Alfred Molina gives an emotional performance as Dick Suskind, Irving's loyal friend and co-writer. Marcia Gay Harden is a genuine Edith Irving in this disturbing story. And Julie Delpy is exquisite as Nina Van Pallandt, the paramour that Irving drags into his ploy. It makes for a nice cinema, and likely a good read.