10 Best Con Man Movies
You won't believe what's on this list! Except you will, as this tag is totally a con.
We live in the age of the con man, the huckster. The man who alone can solve all your problems, or claims he can, holds the highest office in the land, his conspiracy theory-addled supporters like Alex Jones hawk vitamin essentials and energy drinks while screaming their brand.
But since the 70s, Hollywood has taken to re-examining the card shark, the cue man. They used to be heavies in noirs, holding court at the local gin joint. Or they're the second-fiddle, the desperate, disheveled leisure suit-clad criminal with ties to the villain.
But when distrust in the government ran high, we looked at him with a pitying eye. This weak pop culture icon, a coward who has no ties to the community, may bring more to the table than just henchman.
Here are the best con man films - some classic, some new, some long underappreciated...
10. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
In one of the early, rare cases in which a remake is superior to its source material, Frank Oz' retelling of the Marlon Brando/David Niven pairing Bedtime Story succeeds in large part due to casting. Steve Martin balances his slapstick comedy with a less broad, more down to earth character than he was known for at that point: a desperate, low-class scam artist who upsets the carefully controlled ecology of high-end con man Michael Caine. The two set about a wager to see who can scam a tourist first, the agreement being if Martin loses, he'll leave the area, never to return.
Martin had long since retired his stand up career by then, but much of his more bombastic characters his con men creates, particularly the mentally challenged Ruprecht, seem born of unused material. And Caine, as always, can class up any affair.