The Sting Review

Number 98 on the Top 1000 films of all time is the 1973 Caper film: The Sting.

Set during the height of the Great Depression in 1936, Johnny Hooker, (Robert Redford) Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) and Joe Erie (Jack Kehoe) con an unassuming victim.  The only problem is that their unassuming victim is revealed to be working for local crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) who kills Coleman.  In revenge, Hooker teams up with a group of con artists including Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) to take Lonnegan for all that he has.

The Sting is an interesting film due to how it romanticises Hooker and Gondorff who are essentially criminals.  They're supposed to be protagonists when compared against the antagonist Lonnegan who is the true villain.  However, due to Hooker and Gondorff's profession as con artists they are still criminals.  They're thieves if highly glorified thieves. This is why it's so fascinating that they are the heroes of the Sting.  Despite this contrast of roles, the film works.  I think this is down to both Redford's charisma, but also his chemistry with Newman.  Gondorff is supposed to be about twenty years older than Hooker and a definite father-son relationship was present.  Robert Shaw also plays Lonnegan suitably villainously.

Another reason why the Sting succeeds is its technical layout.  The film is played out in separate sections with title cards denoting the start of the next stage of the long con.  This helped to structure the film and to clarify the various sections of a long con, which could be confusing for some.  I also quite liked how the film didn't take itself too seriously.  The Sting makes constant, anachronistic, use of ragtime ditties, which gives it a lighter tone.  The nature of the film could have led it to be very downbeat, but, thankfully, it is kept light-hearted and entertaining.

Finally, it is important to consider the social context of the film when inspecting the characters.  Like I was saying before, it is easy to condemn Gondorff and Hooker as criminals, due to their profession as grifters.  However, the Sting takes place during the Great Depression, a horrific time of poverty that drove men to do whatever they had to survive.  Certainly compared to Lonnegan, Hooker and Gondorff aren't bad men, they just have to do bad things so that they can live their lives.  Do their circumstances justify their actions? Can you ever legitimise stealing regardless of its form? This is another question for another review in another time.