BEFORE: Got a paycheck in the mail today, from the job that laid me off in mid-March but agreed to pay everyone through the end of the month. I worked from home for the other studio last week, but not many hours, just finished up the accounting for the 2019 tax return and a few other small things, that won't be enough hours per week to justify keeping myself employed in name only, so I requested a furlough so I could file for unemployment. That looks like it won't kick in until next week, but New York's waived the usual 7-day waiting period by backdating my claim two weeks, so next week I should start getting some benefit money to keep me from going into debt. We walked to the bank today so I could deposit my check and transfer some money from savings to pay my bills until the UI benefits arrive, and it was just weird being outside - I think I haven't been out anywhere in over a week, except to run around the corner to the deli for soda and milk. My wife made me wear a rubber glove to use the ATM, and as we walked back we saw the street littered with plastic gloves and used masks. Even in this time of crisis, people can't take a few seconds to properly throw away their used face masks? That's part of the problem, how we got into this situation in the first place, because we're all too close together, and we don't properly throw dirty things into the trash! We can't dig ourselves out of this unless we take better care to throw away things that might have come in contact with the virus!
Anyway, it's April Fool's Day, and the news is usually a lot of fun today, with fake reports of things or stories about pranks that people pulled, but I don't feel much like laughing today, not with people getting sick and dying all around. I'll just be happy if this is over in a couple months and I'm still alive and have a job waiting. I had a dream last night that I was in a restaurant with my family, and I suddenly realized I'd forgot to order food, so I saw there was a special on ropa vieja, all I could eat for $5, and I ordered that. I had a special plate so the waiters knew to keep bringing me this stewed beef dish, even if I changed my seat, which I was apparently doing for some reason. Then I couldn't find my family, so I just sat down at another table, with other customers' coats on the chairs, because it was time to eat another plate of rope vieja. This shows a bit where my head is at these days - my greatest fantasy is to be able to go to a restaurant again, preferably an all-you-can-eat place like a churrascaria or a buffet. We like to go to a churrascaria here in Queens on Good Friday, because it's less crowded, but unless something changes, that's not going to be possible this year.
This is the most appropriate film I could come up with for April 1, as Helen Mirren carries over from "Phil Spector".
THE PLOT: Con man Roy Courtnay has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish, worth millions. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes.
AFTER: I want to be careful not to say too much about the plot of this film, because it was released just last year, I don't think it's hit many of the streaming services yet, it's on Amazon Prime for $4.99, YouTube for $5.99 and my OnDemand cable for $6.99. I paid none of those prices, I borrowed an Academy screener, which I know is not technically legal, but hey, think about the free publicity I'm giving to a (probably) underseen film, and how many people will then rent it on those other services, once word gets out among my tens of loyal readers. Don't let me down, guys... So I'll try to avoid spoilers here, because I respect the storyline, I think it's that good. Well, mostly.
Con-man films are a dime a dozen - the best ones are ones like "The Sting" where there are schemes within schemes, or "The Spanish Prisoner", where there's a good old double-cross or maybe even a triple. For the first hour, I'll admit this one seemed pretty basic, that it wasn't going to deliver anything more than what it had at face value, which involved the elderly Roy Courtnay pulling fake investment scams, targeting rich British gentlemen to make them think they're in on a scheme to get money out of some Russian investors. The scheme involves transferring money via these little electronic banking keypads, and for a moment I thought that maybe the keypads were just rigged, to make it look like money is being transferred when it isn't, but nope, it's not that kind of thing. The con is just the electronic equivalent of the guy on the street who pretends to find money, and he offers to give you some if you'll just transport it to the bank in this handy bag, only he doesn't know if he can trust you or not, so you have to put some of YOUR money into the bag too, and then he wraps both piles of money in a cloth and does a switcheroo, so when you get to the bank you've got a paper bag with blank paper in it, and he's somewhere else counting your cash.
It's the kind of scheme where you might have to play it back to figure out who's zooming who, but once you know which people are who they say they are and which one's aren't, it's pretty basic. Then Roy finds a new mark through a dating web-site for seniors, and there's some symmetry here because at first neither party uses their real name, not until they meet the other person for dinner and make sure that they look fairly legit, or at least somewhat attractive. But Roy ends up bonding with Betty, and before long they're dating, or whatever the senior-age equivalent term is, and Roy fakes a knee injury so that he can stay at her house for a few days, and not have to walk up the stairs to his fourth-floor flat.
Betty's adult grandson, Stephen, doesn't like Roy at all, and hates having to drive him around, and is pretty much on to Roy from the start - only he's got a trip planned to Germany, the famous Spandau prison where they detained Nazi criminals in World War II - and Roy takes the opportunity to bring in Vincent, his partner in crime, as a phony investment manager. Vincent delivers a large check to Roy, the return on an alleged investment, as the bait to convince Betty to put her money in a joint investment account with Roy so they can both increase their collective investment and see a larger return. Betty reveals that she's not in perfect health, so Roy figures he wins either way - either he clears out the joint account sooner, or later if Betty doesn't live very long. Pooling assets with someone and then waiting for them to die - that sounds a lot like what some people call "marriage", right?
Anyway, Roy and Betty celebrate by taking a trip to Germany, where Stephen is unexpectedly waiting for them, and that's about all I want to say about the storyline. Bear in mind that what gets revealed has everything to do with the location of their trip, and Roy's age suggests that there's a connection back to his World War II service, and why he's reluctant to talk about it. Elements of a larger con are revealed, some pretty good twists here, unless you happen to find them so far-fetched as to perhaps be unbelievable. That's about where I am after watching this, I'm a bit on the fence on this point. But since I've got more World War II stuff coming up in mid-April, this turned out to be a pretty good way to kick off the month.
Also starring Ian McKellen (last seen in "Mr. Holmes"), Russell Tovey, Jim Carter (last seen in "Ella Enchanted"), Mark Lewis Jones (last seen in "Queen of the Desert"), Laurie Davidson, Phil Dunster (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Lucian Msamati, Johannes Haukur Johannesson (last seen in "Alpha"), Spike White (also last seen in "Mr. Holmes"), Stella Stocker (last seen in "Fury"), Daniel Betts (last seen in "Allied"), Nell Williams, Celine Buckens (last seen in "War Horse"), Lily Dodsworth-Evans, Athena Strates, Aleksandar Jovanovic (last seen in "The Lost City of Z"), Michael Culkin (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Dino Kelly.
RATING: 6 out of 10 English lessons
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