This happens on a train heading to the French Riviera. Josephine, a sophisticated star in the world of European scams, accidentally crosses paths with a swashbuckling Rabelaisian con artist from the United States named Lonnie in a restaurant car. The latter is working the gullible Frenchman, trying to get him to dinner.
The scale is different for both of them: Josephine’s score usually starts at several hundred thousand euros, but the goal is the same: the seaside town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, crammed with millionaires. To prevent Lonnie from confusing her cards, Josephine decides to get rid of her just in case.
Screenplay and drama
The film, directed by Addison and written by Jacques Schaeffer, is packed with events, words and plot twists, which is certainly justified in an American comedy directed by a man from England and set in a French resort.
It was roughly the same in the two previous films that were released in the last century. We are interested in the differences. The last century is distinguished from the current one by the angle of view, and here, following a newfangled and not always justified trend, men and women have been swapped. Previously, men used to deceive the fairer sex. Now, the obvious has become clear: the weaker sex is not weak, and is just as capable of playing on the malfunctions in the program of now men.
Addison speaks several times in the first half of the film, explaining this gender mirror. Such insistence is unnecessary. The system-forming idea of the movie Fraudsters is read at a glance. But this is not what is important. What is important is that this gender reversal works perfectly here. This tendency is not always justified, not because it is wrong, but because it does not always produce results. An example is the boring comedy Ocean’s Eight from the same Hathaway. Here, there is a result.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, Addison has an innate sense of humor, which was tempered in the forges of Armando Iannucci. Secondly, the screenwriter Schaeffer is not without it either. She tried hard not to make the confusing story of the con artists worse, and she succeeded more often than not.
Schaeffer is also a co-writer of the movie Captain Marvel. That movie, despite some of its flaws, was light and unobtrusive. Here, it’s much the same.
Having started his story as a gender satire in the spirit of his mentor’s works, Addison in the second half turns off the allegedly planned path and goes into a purely American comedy with all the consequences that entails. To put it bluntly, no one was offended here, and everyone behind the cynical armor has a very real human heart.
Actors and the picture
Returning to the reasons why the movie “Con Man” works, the third point is the acting chemistry between Hathaway and Wilson. The former is aristocratic, thin and arrogant. The latter is too simple, fleshy, and punchy as a battering ram. They are terribly mismatched, but that’s the point.
Where others would have had a series of awkward scenes, the talented actresses have had a series of homerically funny awkward scenes. In general, the jokes in the movie are mainly of two types: wordplay (which, given the director’s track record, should not be surprising) and those very awkward moments (which also fits within Addison’s capabilities).
All together, it looks like an old and beloved comedy of positions. This is hinted at in the opening credits of the film.
In the first half of the film, the Con artist cunningly pretends to be stupid, and in the end it becomes so, but it doesn’t work to its disadvantage. Addison’s film, in general, has many lines that intersect: the old approach and the new century, the English school and the American school, Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson.
Both actresses use the arsenal given to them by nature and stumble only where the script requires it. As a result, they and everyone involved in the creation of the movie were definitely awarded points in karma. At least for being funny and for the fact that the principle of changing the roles of men and women has finally worked.
