‘The Sting’ Tricks Its Characters and the Audience

The Sting reminds me of Ocean’s Eleven. Surely, The Sting was a major influence on Soderbergh’s caper. It has the same cool guy vibes and deception that make it so exciting. Not only do our main characters trick the antagonist, but they trick the audience as well. We are both part of the con and being conned.

While I understand it’s probably not that hard to fool me watching a movie, even the most perceptive of audiences could have been fooled by The Sting. Unless you were watching just to soullessly scrutinize the cons, you’ll be surprised by at least one of the fronts put on by our sneaky main characters. Even if you aren’t, you’ll appreciate how clever the ruses are.

Spoilers ahead, though it’s a little hard to spoil a 50-year-old movie.

The Audience Is In On It

The Sting generally lets its audience in on the schemes it perpetrates. We see exactly what goes into making a successful deception. Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) gathers everyone together and gives everyone their role to play. He directs the construction of facades that could fool anyone. The audience is learning how to con others right along with Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford). We should know everything that’s going on and how it will fool our bad guys.

This covert knowledge allows the audience to be in on the joke; it’s almost like we perpetrated it ourselves. We know exactly what’s going on and so when we see the bad guys fall for it, it’s all the more satisfying. It’s like we were a part of it all along. It’s hard to see how the bad guys could fall for such lies when we’re on the side of the liars.

But, of course, we are not in on all the trickery. If we were, The Sting would lose part of its magic. From the very first con, there are bits and pieces that the audience isn’t aware of. When Hooker first gets into this mess by conning the wrong guy, we are conned right along with the poor sap.

What Is the Truth?

Part of the fun of The Sting is never knowing what’s real and what isn’t. Is Hooker really trying to double-con Gondorff with Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw)? Does Gondorff know what’s going on or is he as clueless as Hooker portrays him to be? Are the police and the FBI closing in on our main conmen or are they still floundering behind?

Just when you think you have the answer to these questions, The Sting rips the rug out from under you. Whatever you thought you knew, forget it. The Sting has more twists and turns than Inception, and it doesn’t take itself as seriously. This is a fun, buddy movie for two guys manipulating their way through life.

When the final con is playing out, the audience finally thinks they know what’s going on. Hooker is going to sell out Gondorff to the FBI to protect an old friend’s wife. Gondorff doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, but he’s packing heat because he suspects something. The FBI is going to bust in at the end and take it all down. Right?

Redford and Newman

Robert Redford and Paul Newman are one of the greatest duos in film history. The two worked on two of the greatest films of all time together: The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Both films are masterpieces accentuated by the chemistry between the two.

Part of why The Sting can so successfully swindle its audience is the cohesiveness between the two. They play off each other so well that we believe anything they say or do. It’s hard to find a team of actors nowadays who were as in tune with each other as they were.

And while they do amazing when they’re playing off each other, they both put in fantastic solo performances as well; Newman with the cool guy demeanor that would make anyone follow him and Redford with the folksy charm that endears us to him.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

We are tricked right along with the others in The Sting because of how the movie reveals itself to the audience. There are cons where we’re in on the whole thing. We see all the behind-the-scenes of creating a believable lie. After seeing all that goes into it, we start to think that we would recognize a con when we saw one.

On the contrary, at the end of the film with the final con, the audience falls for the con right along with the villain. I thought that Gondorff and Hooker were both dead and that this more jovial film was going to end in such a dark manner. When they both jumped back up at the end, I was both surprised and feeling a little foolish. How could I have fallen for such an obvious con?

That’s what makes The Sting so much fun. We don’t get the full story for every con and it’s always a delight to see what details we didn’t pick up on. You think you have it all put together and then you realize you’ve been tricked again. It’s easy to see how the bad guys could fall for such obvious falsehoods when we are fooled as well. I would put The Sting right up there with the Ocean’s film franchise in terms of heist movies.

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