An
amusing enough little comedy – more than a bit hokey in places and nothing you
haven’t seen before, but the likable performances make it decently enjoyable.
Wai is a
small-time con man. He sets his sights
on a new mark, a young widow who inherited a bundle from her late husband, and
enlists some friends to help him out.
They try an assortment of schemes, but as an even bigger fish comes
along, they realize they may be better off recruiting her than conning her.
As I
said, really none of this is new. All
the beats are familiar: the charming
hustler, the botched con, the big score, the cheap disguises, the unexpected
snafus, the mark trying to turn the tables.
Any movie about conning is of course going to incorporate some
“unexpected” twists, and Great Pretenders’s
unpredictability is fairly, well, predictable, largely zigging and zagging at
the moments when you think it will.
Still,
most of the characters are fun enough. I
like that it’s not just Wai – while he
has nothing close to a well-assembled crew, he has a few friends with
particular specialties, and they frequently team up to run jobs together. I especially enjoy Mei-mei, an expert mahjong
cheat. Also, I appreciate that Susan,
the widow, isn’t as easy a target as Wai expects. Yes, he definitely gets one over on her at
various points – it wouldn’t be a con movie if he didn’t – but she’s more than
just a dupe.
Tony
Leung Chiu-wai is fun as Wai. It’s the
sort of role that’s right up his alley (when I was first introduced to Leung in
movies like Hero and Infernal Affairs, I would’ve never
guessed that he played so many likable crooks in the ‘90s,) and while it’s
well-trod ground at this point, it’s still enjoyable. It’s fun to watch Wai improvise on the spot
and try to talk his way out of tight situations. I will say that this role probably leans a
little broader than average, so it’s not exactly an acting master-class
situation.
Before I
go, I unfortunately have to mention the movie’s biggest detriment, an extended
sequence that relies on some really homophobic tropes. It’s actively ugly, and I cringed. Good on Happy
Together for being as nuanced as it is, because I’ve found plenty of other
Chinese movies made within several years of it that treat gay characters really
offensively.
Recommend?
In
General
– Probably not. I don’t know if I’d
quite call it bad, but I don’t feel it makes it all the way to “good.”
Tony
Leung Chiu-wai
– A soft maybe. It’s an enjoyable
performance, but you can definitely find better examples of Leung playing this
type.
Warnings
Drinking/smoking,
sexual content, language, homophobic “humor,” violence, and thematic elements.
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