Day 152: The Sting (1973)

Movie #100 – The Sting (1973) - 129 min, cert PG.

Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a small-time con artist from Chicago. He and his accomplices play a hustle on some guy in the street for the contents of his wallet. Unfortunately, he turns out to be a runner for the local mobster, Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) who puts out a contract to have them killed. Hooker leaves town and goes in search of Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), a con artist with a reputation for playing big cons and together they hatch a plot to con Lonnegan out of a hefty sum of money.

This was always one of my Dad’s favourite movies, and I remember watching it with him when I was quite young. I was too young to really understand much of it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and it left a lasting impression. I watched it several more times (mostly with my Dad) over the years that followed, gradually understanding a bit more each time. It is a complicated plot, but quite brilliantly kept together by director George Roy Hill. He keeps the story moving forward at a brisk pace, but still gives the attentive viewer a decent chance of keeping up. The final plot twist that is now mandatory for these kind of films, but was much more unusual at the time, is a good one.

Newman & Redford were good friends coming into this movie, having already worked together on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (also by George Roy Hill) some four years previously, and the chemistry between them is obvious.

Score – 10/10. The original ‘caper’ movie, and still the best. Of the last ten movies I’ve seen, I think only this one deserves a place in my top ten, which now looks like this:

1.       The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

2.       Pulp Fiction (1994)

3.       Forrest Gump (1994)

4.       The Sting (1973)

5.       The Green Mile (1999)

6.       Amelie (2001)

7.       Fight Club (1999)

8.      The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

9.       Toy Story 3 (2010)

10.   The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Well that’s 100 movies watched and I’m still going, and still on target to finish by the end of the year. Although the blog is beginning to lag critically behind. Anyway, ever onwards - next up is The Elephant Man which I haven’t seen for many a year.