- Movie Rating -

The Sting II (1983)

| February 18, 1983

I kid you not, when I heard that Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis were occupying roles first played by Redford and Newman, I thought it was a joke.  “This couldn’t be,” I thought.  “There’s no way that a bunch of studio execs would allow this to go through, to trash an Academy Award winning property this way.”  But that’s exactly what they did.

It is not on Gleason or Davis.  Gleason is a comedy legend and Davis is a good actor (see North Dallas Forty) but what are they doing here?  How did anyone think this would work?  And worse, why did they add to that unwise casting a plot that basically repeats the first movie beat for beat?

I don’t know, but I want to know.  Who looked at this and convinced themselves that this was a good idea?  This is the most boring heist movie that I’ve ever seen.  It’s badly photographed, the sound is off, the actors are basically reading cue cards and I really question the decisions made here.

It doesn’t even get the heist part right.  The fun of the original was the way in which Redford and Newman set up a series of long and short cons aimed at avenging their buddy who was rubbed out by a vicious crime boss.  The explosion of surprises at the end drew gasps from the audience.  There, the shoe never falls.  The movie is so badly put together that you’re never sure what the con is suppose to be.  This time, you’re the one who gets conned.

About the Author:

Jerry Roberts is a film critic and operator of two websites, Armchair Cinema and Armchair Oscars.
(1983) View IMDB Filed in: Comedy
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