Sharper – Review
116 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka
Directed by Benjamin Caron
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
Motivations are suspect, and expectations are turned chaos, as a con artist takes on Manhattan billionaires.
Was a bit delayed in getting to watch this one and was asked if it was a thumbs up or down; I replied “yes.”
And that’s basically what Sharper is, a film which brings together a very talented cast but sets them lose on what is basically a by-the-numbers con story.
Whether Sebastian Stan is conning a parole officer to recruit a new protege (mark?) or double-crossing his mother’s new boyfriend or destroying the life of a quiet, bookish man for a reason which only becomes apparent halfway through the runtime, we’ve seen all this before.
The biggest rule of thumb in movies like this is that once it’s been established that someone is conning someone, everyone is (likely) conning everyone. Whether it’s played in a pseudo-noir way, as Sharper does, or in a 100% comedic way, a la Steve Martin and Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, no one is to be trusted.
And so, as we watch the wheels within wheels of “who’s playing who and why” spin wildly across our screen, we realize that we don’t really care, because we can’t really bring ourselves to like any particular character to worry whether or not they’re a player or a mark.
So effective performance from every single one of our leads provide a technically well-played script, but the script’s top-end is limited, and so is the watching experience overall.
That’s not to say Sharper isn’t worth watching: far from it. Just know going in that you can’t trust anybody farther than you can throw them.
Which works if you simply want to watch nearly everyone get their comeuppance at some point in the film. Some earlier than others, some later, but everyone get taken by someone at some point.
And by the end, the “winners” are still so generally unlikeable that you probably won’t care they won.
Sharper is now streaming on Apple TV+ and stars Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, and John Lithgow.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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