Storyline
Set in the 1930s this intricate caper deals with an ambitious small-time crook and a veteran con man who seek revenge on a vicious crime lord who murdered one of their gang.
Directors
Cast
Kathleen Freeman, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Eileen Brennan, Charles Durning, Sally Kirkland, Harold Gould, Paulene Myers, Robert Shaw, Susan French, Alexander Lockwood, Joe Tornatore, Arthur Tovey, Ray Walston, Larry D. Mann, Jack Kehoe, John Quade, Leonard Barr, James Sloyan, Dimitra Arliss, Brad Sullivan, Robert Earl Jones, Guy Way, Arch Johnson, Charles Dierkop, Dana Elcar, Lee Paul, Jack Collins, Tom Spratley, Ken Sansom, John Heffernan, Avon Long, Ed Bakey, Ta-Tanisha, William Benedict, Robert Brubaker, Bruce Kimball, Chuck Morrell, Byron Morrow, Pearl Shear
Trailer
Reviews
100
The style here is so seductive and witty it's hard to pin down. It's like nothing else I've seen by Hill, and at times, it almost reminds me of Jacques Tati crossed with Robert Altman. It's good to get a crime movie more concerned with humor and character than with blood and gore; here's one, as we say, for the whole family.
90
The Sting has all the signs of a blockbuster. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are superbly reteamed, this time as a pair of con artists in Chicago of the ’30s, out to fleece a bigtime racketeer brilliantly cast with and played by Robert Shaw. George Roy Hill’s outstanding direction of David S. Ward’s finely-crafted story of multiple deception and surprise ending will delight both mass and class audiences. Extremely handsome production values and a great supporting cast round out the virtues.
90
The Chicago locations are well used by veteran director George Roy Hill, and the wonderful 30s movie style (lots of horizontal and vertical wipes, flipping screens, irises in and out) enhances the sense of good, harmless, nostalgic fun.
80
A lot of the other period details aren't too firmly anchored in time, but the film is so good-natured, so obviously aware of everything it's up to, even its own picturesque frauds, that I opt to go along with it. One forgives its unrelenting efforts to charm, if only because The Sting itself is a kind of con game, devoid of the poetic aspirations that weighed down "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
70
But the look of a movie is not as important as how it feels. The Sting feels like a cold shower. One dashes into it primarily because of its superior cast.
