Con artists accumulate in the slinky 'Sharper'
Seldom does the ingenuity and cleverness of a good hustler, card sharp or con man not win us over. They are, of course, walking metaphors for the movies. Through finesse and daring, they pull the wool over our eyes while emptying our pockets.
They're also great roles for actors, our best liars, to showcase their powers of slight-of-hand seduction and subtle transformation. “Sharper,” a fitfully delicious pile of deceptions and double-crosses, is made with evident appreciation for the genre. It opens with a definition of its title — “one who lives by their wits” — and “Sharper,” too, skates by nimbly enough by coasting on its cast's smarts.
“Sharper” is a slinky, slick caper that finds ways to distort expectations while unfolding a puzzle-box narrative. Before its lesser third act, “Sharper” — propelled especially by the performances of newcomer Briana Middleton and the more veteran Sebastian Stan — manages to juggle its plot twists with panache.
It opens with a seemingly sweet note of romance. Sandra (Middleton) breezes into a used bookshop on the Lower East Side to pick up a copy of Zora Neale Hurston's “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” She tells the guy behind the counter — Tom (Justice Smith) — that she's getting her PhD in Black feminist studies. The scene could be a meet cute for a bookish romcom. But given that opening title card, we're on guard for the scam. She's forgotten money — is that the play? A free book? They go on a date and later return to the store to hold in their hands a first edition of “Jane Eyre.” Maybe that's the goal? A fiendish scheme to swipe rare Charlotte Brontës? But as a character says later, if you're going to steal, steal big.
“Sharper,” structured as a series of vignettes each titled after a particular character, unspools as a series of ever-expanding cons. First, there is Sandra, in need of $350,000 to rescue her drug addict brother from his debtors. Once that plays out, the second chapter rewinds to Sandra's past, and her chance encounter with a skilled grifter, Max (Stan). He takes Sandra under his wing to school in the art of deception. His system starts with reading the newspaper: “So you can lie about anything.” And he's single-minded about the work.
“I don't watch movies,” Max says. “They're a waste of time.”
First off, ouch. But this is also an early hint, in Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka's layered screenplay, that the grifters of “Sharper” — unlike, say, Paul Newman of “The Sting” or Leonardo DiCaprio of “Catch Me if You Can” — are a more sober variety of fabulist, less a stand-in for the make-believe of movies than a concept to question and interrogate.
Smoothly helmed by British TV director Benjamin Caron, the film continues to widen and brings in more characters and backstories, including a New York socialite (Julianne Moore, also a producer) who's dating a billionaire widower (John Lithgow). But the progression begins to work against the film. We're well-conditioned to look for the con, and see it coming a long ways out. After a promising start, “Sharper” grows duller.
“Sharper," an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for language throughout and some sexual references. Running time: 116 minutes. Three stars out of four.
