Dirty Rotten Scoundrels / The Hustle

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (PG)

D: Frank Oz

Rank/Orion (Bernard Williams)

USA 🇺🇸 1988

110 mins

Comedy/Crime

W: Dale Launer [based on the screenplay "Bedtime Story" by Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning]

DP: Michael Ballhaus

Ed: Stephen A. Rotter & William Scharf

Mus: Miles Goodman

PD: Roy Walker

Michael Caine (Lawrence Jamieson), Steve Martin (Freddy Benson), Glenne Headly (Janet Colgate), Anton Rodgers (Inspector Andre), Barbara Harris (Fanny Eubanks), Ian McDiarmid (Arthur)

Steve Martin & Michael Caine play Freddy Benson and Lawrence Jamieson, two confidence tricksters on the French Riviera, one for small stakes whilst the other lives in a luxurious mansion.

At first, Lawrence agrees to help Freddy spruce up his routine but when it becomes apparent that the Riviera isn't big enough for the both of them, they wager a "loser leaves town" bet over who can obtain the fortune of a naïve American soap heiress.

Directed by Frank Oz, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is arguably Steve Martin's funniest movie, featuring some absolutely hilarious scenes of the two con men trying to outfox each other and a possible scene-stealing performance from Glenne Headly as the woman whose fortune both men are feuding for.

The film is a remake of the sprightly 1964 comedy film 'Bedtime Story', starring David Niven & Marlon Brando in the leads.

8/10

Glenne Headly, Steve Martin & Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

THE HUSTLE (12)

D: Chris Addison

MGM/Pin High/Cave 76/Camp Sugar (Roger Birnbaum & Rebel Wilson)

US 🇺🇸 2019

94 mins

"Comedy"

W: Jac Schaeffer [based on the screenplays "Bedtime Story" by Paul Henning & Stanley Shapiro, and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" by Dale Launer]

DP: Michael Coulter

Ed: Anthony Boys

Mus: Anne Dudley

Anne Hathaway (Josephine Chesterfield), Rebel Wilson (Penny Rust), Alex Sharp (Thomas Westerburg), Ingrid Oliver (Brigitte Desjardins)

A woefully unfunny, misandrist remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, gender-switching the two main characters because in 2019 this is, presumably, all Hollywood has to offer to actresses in order to "level the playing field".

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was, in fact, a remake of a 1960's caper called Bedtime Story, but with Steve Martin & Michael Caine in the starring roles, it made the story its own and was one of the funniest movies of the 1980's.

This has Anne Hathaway & Rebel Wilson playing a couple of odious bitches, and that sentence is all that this pathetic excuse for a film deserves.

0/10

Anne Hathaway & Rebel Wilson in The Hustle