The Sting II

Good acting. Good story, but a little confusing at times. Very good photography. Too true of the dark side to be funny. No laughs, but none desired (I presume).

The first movie is a masterpiece. This movie isn't as bad as to have a zero percent on rotten tomatoes. I enjoyed the new characters and the con has a nice twist at the end. Terri Garr and Jackie Gleason are really good. The story is decent and it's a fun popcorn film.

Dismal follow up to the Oscar winner with Gleason and Davis poorly attempting to ignite the same flame as Newman and Redford as con men looking to get well and rich. Malden is laughable as a tough guy. Reed is no Robert Shaw by any means and it shows. Garr is passable, but she looks bored with David S. Ward's script, who oddly enough, wrote the script to the Oscar winner. What happened? While the score is catchy, the rest of the film is quite embarassing at times.

I loved the first film, but when I saw that there had been a sequel, I was suspicious: normally, they are always much weaker than the originals. And so it was! This film is nothing more than a pale shadow of its predecessor. It attempts to follow up the story of the con artists from the first film, with a script set four to five years later, however it is a much weaker, disjointed, conventional and predictable story. It's not really worth summarizing: suffice it to say that the crooks are back to avenge a comrade who was killed.

The cast is completely different from the original film, and that was one of the first red flags for me, even before the start. If the first film was a nest of first-rate artists like Robert Shaw, Robert Redford or Paul Newman, this film relies on weaker actors because the first ones didn't want to return to the project. And my red flags raised higher when I saw that it was another director, Jeremy Kagan. I don't know him, but I wasn't impressed with his work here.

When we talk about the actors, the best we have is Jackie Gleason. He's not great, but he does a good job, with commitment and some talent, that deserves a very positive note. Mac Davis is much less successful, not going much beyond average. The same can be said of Karl Malden and Teri Garr, who do not shine in their roles. It's very little and doesn't meet the expectations at all, especially those of the public who saw the original film.

Technically, the film shines due to its cinematography, good color and initial credits, which are a nod to the original film. This was very enjoyable and gave the film a really nice family comedy feel. I also liked most of the sets and costumes, as well as the period recreation. The problem is the soundtrack. If the first film used intelligently a series of melodies by Scott Joplin, one of the great composers in vogue at the time, this film was completely unable to do a similar exercise. However, the original soundtrack made by Lalo Schiffrin was good enough to deserve an Oscar nomination. The only nomination, which is still another bad note if we consider that the first film was nominated ten times and "cleaned" the auditorium by taking seven statuettes.

Of course "The Sting 2" is nowhere near the classic original. Of course Mac Davis and Jackie Gleason are no Newman and Redford. If you try to watch this film and keep the original completely out of mind you might enjoy it some. On it's own it's only average but not terrible.

Jackie Gleason is ok in his role though he looks rather bored. I thought Mac Davis came off much better and after his terrific dramatic role in "North Dallas Forty" he pulled off comedy fairly well. I wish he had done more with his acting career. Oliver Reed is just right as the bad guy and it is a reminder that Reed was almost always worth watching in even the worst of films ("Venom" being a prime example).

The big problem with "Sting 2" is the script which is odd seeing it was written by David S. Ward who wrote the Oscar winning original. The big difference is that when the first film came out 10 years earlier the surprises were fresh and all the cons were not revealed until the end. Here there's a con in virtually every scene so the audience is conditioned to not believe what they have just seen. It takes away from the true surprises that come.

All in all there are worse movies to see. Lovers of the original should just steer clear but others may enjoy it. It's a mild diversion and nothing more.