It's set in the 70s-80s and is apparently based on a real life sting operation by the FBI called ABSCAM. Con artist Irving (Christian Bale) meets Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) and they expand their con business as they complement each other. Sydney poses as an aristocratic English lady and Irving as a loan arranger. They also fall in love but Irving does not want to leave his adopted son. The two are trapped by an FBI agent Richie (Bradley Cooper) who promises to let them go if they help him make four arrests. They agree.
Richie gets ambitious and wants to expand the operations to cover politicians taking bribes from an Arab sheikh who is supposed to fund them. The politicians also get some mobsters involved and soon everything goes out of control. Irving and Sydney split, Sydney starts seeing Richie, Irving's wife Rosalyn suspects Irving and in the middle of all this the operation has to go on. Anyway, all's well and it ends well as Irving and Sydney somehow con Richie and buy themselves some space and get out.
It goes all over and its funny in parts, specially in the first part. the acting is high quality stuff though with Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and a powerhouse cameo by Robert De Niro making it all very tight. They are all dysfunctional and neurotic characters - real life stuff. I enjoyed listening to all the old 70s and 80s music, the jokes in the first half, but it ended kind of tamely. Would I watch it again? Not really. Once is fine.
Richie gets ambitious and wants to expand the operations to cover politicians taking bribes from an Arab sheikh who is supposed to fund them. The politicians also get some mobsters involved and soon everything goes out of control. Irving and Sydney split, Sydney starts seeing Richie, Irving's wife Rosalyn suspects Irving and in the middle of all this the operation has to go on. Anyway, all's well and it ends well as Irving and Sydney somehow con Richie and buy themselves some space and get out.
It goes all over and its funny in parts, specially in the first part. the acting is high quality stuff though with Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and a powerhouse cameo by Robert De Niro making it all very tight. They are all dysfunctional and neurotic characters - real life stuff. I enjoyed listening to all the old 70s and 80s music, the jokes in the first half, but it ended kind of tamely. Would I watch it again? Not really. Once is fine.
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