The Con is On is a 2018 comedy about a couple who flee to Los Angeles and hatch a jewel theft plot in an effort to avoid paying off a massive gambling debt to a notorious mobster in England.
The heist movie is one of two animals, a straight up action thriller with suspense and consequences or, as is more often the case, a comedic boondoggle of over-the-top schemes, eccentric characters, pratfall and a jazzy score. The latter was made most successful with Steven Soderbergh‘s Ocean’s movies with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, proving that with the right cast and direction, the simple formula can be a solid bit of entertainment. Director James Oakley (credited as James Haslam) isn’t lacking a stellar cast, all of whom seem absolutely pitch perfect for such a film, but in execution, The Con is On is nothing more than a tired has been with few laughs and no joy.
Harriet Fox (Uma Thurman) and her husband Peter (Tim Roth) live in England and work as con artists, being fairly successful at it, too, working hard to live a posh life. He’s fresh from a stint in a Turkish prison and when they make the wrong choice with a bag of drug money, end up in major debt to a ruthless crime lord named Irina (Maggie Q), who doles out death like she’s filling a quota. Hoping to find a way to pay her back and not end up on the wrong end of a fired bullet, Peter and Harriet hatch a plan to fleece Peter’s ex-wife, Jackie (Alice Eve), who now lives in Los Angeles with her new husband Gabriel (Crispin Glover), a rich and slightly left of center movie director. Seems easy enough, but of course, you know, the best laid plans … and all that jazz.
The Con is On is a movie you really want to like. In fact, you will most likely give it a lot more credit than it deserves in the opening moments in hopes that with such a talented cast and a genuinely funny premise, it might deliver. However, the film is always just one step out of working, its timing and pacing just a little off and the whole thing trying way too hard to be more than it can be. Aside from those mentioned, we also get Parker Posey as Gabriel’s assistant Gina, who is the walking definition of flighty. There’s Sophia Vergara as Gabriel’s latest leading lady, who is, naturally, madly in love with him. And then there’s Stephen Fry as Sidney, a shady possibly pedophiliac priest with some questionable ties to questionable people. This is a heck of a cast.
All of them are some of the best as what they do, yet, despite the ensemble film trademarks, The Con is On can’t find enough for each to do beyond be silly. This is a madcap adventure where silly has purpose, and at times, I was reminded of better films like Peter Bogdanovich‘s underrated but brilliant Noises Off and even a few bits from the Ocean’s franchise, but it loses it’s way fairly quickly. That’s mostly due to a script that serves more as a montage than a narrative, and while a film like this hardly needs a strong story to work, there’s just nothing meaty enough about any of the characters to make it matter. There’s good work from Thurman and Roth, who both do well as curiously likable terrible people, but it only makes it obvious how much potential lies in the mix, untapped and waiting to spring.