Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. The Sting is the forty-sixth film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. Just like every good con, every good movie needs a hook. Maybe it can be based on the real life of a famous person, that’ll rope ‘em in. Or a gritty crime story with lots of twists and turns. As far as draws go, it’s tough to come up with a better one than two of Hollywood’s biggest stars in a 30s set, ragtime scored and meticulously plotted heist comedy. To do that, George Roy Hill reunited with his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid stars for The Sting. Low level con man Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) runs a grift on the wrong guy when he unknowingly hits one of Doyle Lonnegan’s (Robert Shaw) runners for a few thousand dollars. Even though he swiftly blows his cut on an ill advised roulette bet, Hooker finds himself squarely in Lonnegan’s crosshairs. This fact becomes bluntly apparent when Hooker’s partner is shot down in his home. Seeking revenge, the beleaguered swindler enlists the help of notorious Henry Gondorff (the ever committed Paul Newman) to run a scheme so large it’ll ruin Lonnegan altogether. A throwback in just about every sense of the word, The Sting is a whole lot of fun. The 30s setting achieves a fun realism of tone without forcing authenticity. Like the film as a whole, the design is stylish. Costumes are sharp, dialogue even more so. Newman and Redford look like they are having an absolute blast trading witty verbal barbs. And then there’s the score. Entirely backed by Scott Joplin ragtime classics — with a healthy use of ‘The Entertainer’ — that music alone gives Hill’s film a delightful pace and lightness to offset darker moments on screen. Adding to the whimsical world building is a plot that walks a very tight rope. Gondorff and Hooker’s sting is complex but never convoluted. Even as the film throws twists at the audience the deception never outpaces a feeling that we are in on the plan. Shaw never needs to act out some intense burst of violence to show that Lonnegan is big and bad enough to be worthy of his fate. He simply barks out at hired goons in an Irish accent and big pinstripe suit, telling us all we need to know. The Sting sheds a lot of trappings and character depth in service of a snappy heist. Every person in the film is more archetype than man. Newman as the old hand, Redford as the fresh ambitious face and Shaw as the villainous mobster. Luckily for the film each of the leads lend a tremendous amount of nuance through performance alone. A well paced script sets the foundation but without Newman flipping through personas like cards in a deck, or Redford solemnly walking the desolate Chicago streets, the film would still be missing pathos. Certainly, The Sting is far from the most revelatory film to ever win Best Picture, but it has to be one of the most fun. Every stylistic choice coheres into an almost romantic caricature of the depression era. Newman and Redford shine opposite one another in that singular, luminescent movie star way we just don’t see much anymore. The whole thing is an absolute blast. 8/10
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