The Hoax (2006)

Directed by Lasse Hallström. Starring Richard Gere, Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Stanley Tucci, Željko Ivanek, John Bedford Lloyd, Julie Delpy, Eli Wallach, Peter McRobbie. [R]

The outrageous true story of writer Clifford Irving’s convoluted scheme to fake a correspondence relationship with reclusive, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes while authoring a bogus biography about the man. Devised as part character study, part disarming comedy, and part suspenseful drama, Gere is well-cast as Irving, and Molina—as his semi-reluctant, far less cunning partner-in-crime—does scene-stealing work, bumbling maladroitly at the worst possible times and casually dropping hilarious lines left and right (discussing the children’s book he’s writing about Richard the Lionhearted: “You know it’s a great subject: war, sodomy… I mean, the war part’s great—kids love war. But what do you do with the sodomy, you know?”). The scenes of paranoia and fallout in the final act are mishandled, indistinctly blurring the lines of reality and withholding key information; because Irving’s motivations and psychology in thinking he could actually get away with such a harebrained swindle are only shallowly observed, there’s no weight behind the consequences and his relationships with both his wife (Harden, affecting a clumsy accent) and mistress (Delpy, underused). The real-life Irving claimed that William Wheeler’s screenplay was a distortion of the truth, and requested that his name be removed from the film; despite the significant liberties taken, however, it’s still a pretty good satirical caper.

72/100