Year 13, Day 105 - 4/15/21 - Movie #3,809
BEFORE: Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries over from "Project Power", and he apparently just has a small uncredited cameo here (he's apparently in every Rian Johnson film, for good luck or something) but that counts, for my purposes. I could have dropped this film or rescheduled, since it's the middle film of three with Mr. Gordon-Levitt, and the chain would neatly close up without it, but if I'm going to complete a 6-film tribute to Marvel's Infinity Stones (or Gems, if you read the comics), and I needed a film that symbolizes REALITY (the red one). For my purposes I'm counting "21 Bridges" as SPACE (blue), "I'm Not Here" as MIND (yellow), "Palm Spring" as TIME (green), "Soul" as SOUL (orange) and "Project Power" as POWER (purple).
I just didn't see tomorrow's film as a good enough stand-in for REALITY - it may be, for all I know, but a movie full of con games seemed a bit more on point. So it's by no means a "Joseph Gordon-Levitt film", but I hope to see him in his uncredited cameo. (Thanks, Wiki...). Then tomorrow I'll get to that Oscar contender that I've been working towards. If not tonight, I had a slot five days after Mother's Day that this film would have fit into, but let's cross it off tonight. If I can count Adam Goldberg seen sleeping on a train in "Before Sunrise", I can count this appearance as legit.
Before I start, here's the line-up for tomorrow, April 16, on TCM, as they cross the midpoint of their "31 Days of Oscar" schedule:
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Hustle" (Movie #3,771)
THE PLOT: The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they've decided to take on one last job - showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world.
AFTER: This is a magnificent little film, I'm so glad I watched it today. Maybe it just looks great by comparison, it's ten times the film that "Soul" was, and it turns out that I like a really good, twisty con game film more than a mediocre non-Marvel superhero film. Imagine a cross between the best parts of "Now You See Me" and "The Darjeeling Limited". Or "Grand Budapest Hotel" with the soundtrack of "Rushmore" - basically it's as if Wes Anderson directed "The Spanish Prisoner", if that means anything to you, then you're in luck.
The whole first act, showing the Brothers Bloom at the age of 10 and 13, going from one foster home to another, always getting in trouble and learning better ways to scam the other kids in every town, is told as a long poem. The combination of the narration and the dialogue all fits together in a loose rhyme scheme, kind of like "The Grinch" or something - man, that must have been tough to construct, but I also wish it could have continued for the whole film, it's unique and gorgeous...
When we catch up with the brothers 25 years later, we see just the tail end of one of their con scenarios, this one involves buried money, a mansion currently on fire, and a gun that shoots blanks combined with a squib, to make the mark think he's killed Stephen. What seems outrageous to us is apparently quite routine to the Bloom brothers, and that's the whole point. The younger brother, Bloom (yes, his name is Bloom Bloom, deal with it.) has been through so many fake scenarios written by his brother that he desperately needs something real in his life, just for his own sanity. So he quits the whole game, gets off the crazy merry-go-round and heads off somewhere far away where his brother won't find him.
Three months later, his brother finds him and says he's lined up the perfect mark, an heiress in New Jersey who's been sheltered her whole life, picked up an array of odd hobbies, and would probably be eager to go on an adventure with them, however it's one where every element is fake - or is it? Characters keep getting introduced, there's a rare book that needs to be stolen from a museum in Prague, and to the film's credit, I was never really sure what parts of the plan were set-ups, and which were real. Part of these cons, after all, might be creating the illusion that things aren't going to plan, which makes them more believable to the mark. Parsing out what's real and what isn't, is therefore part of the game for the audience.
This eventually puts the brothers in the orbit of their old confidence mentor, Diamond Dog, who seems like a really nasty sort. But when the brothers need his help, and push comes to shove, will he enact his revenge, or go along with the scheme to get money from the heiress? Meanwhile, Bloom has fallen in love with the heiress, of course, so his loyalties are torn, also. There are schemes within schemes and by the end of things, nobody really knows what's fake (see, I trusted my instincts, this film is all about questioning REALITY) and by the time it's all become clear, it could be too late to fix everything. The perfect con turns out to be one where everybody involved gets what they want (or thinks that they do) - but what, exactly, does everybody really want, deep down?
This film is FREE on Tubi (tubitv.com) or on IMDB.com - no rental fee, no monthly membership fee, just Google it and watch and enjoy - so why WOULDN'T you? In a way, this film almost seems like it's too good to be on a free service, did I miss the boat on this one, or is it still waiting to be discovered as a future classic? I'm not sure.
Also starring Adrien Brody (last seen in "Third Person"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Rachel Weisz (last seen in "The Constant Gardener"), Rinko Kikuchi (last seen in "Pacific Rim: Uprising"), Maximilian Schell (last seen in "A Bridge Too Far"), Robbie Coltrane (last heard in "Brave"), Zachary Gordon (last heard in "Norm of the North"), Max Records (last seen in "The Sitter"), Andy Nyman (last seen in "The Commuter"), Noah Segan (last seen in "Brick"), Nora Zehetner (ditto), Stefan Kapicic (last heard in "Deadpool 2"), with a cameo from Lukas Haas (also last seen in "Brick") and the voice of Ricky Jay (last seen in "Tomorrow Never Dies").
RATING: 8 out of 10 card tricks
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