A droll fast-moving picture that falls within the stranger than fiction realm, ‘The Hoax’ coasts along on an extremely affable front and center performance by Richard Gere about the long forgotten true story of Cliff Irving, a man who convinced the world in the early 70s he had exclusive access to billionaire recluse Howard Hughes.
Clifford Irving - a great writer and apparently, a great actor - concocted a brazen plan to sell the “exclusive” official autobiography of Howard Hughes to publishing giant McGraw Hill and almost got away with pulling off what seems to be one of the great scams of all time. Had Hughes himself not come out of hiding to denounce Irving, a highly questionable act, this autobiography might still be on shelves with Irving being famous instead of infamous.
After a stream of romantic leads, Gere occupies a much needed role here that shows off a number of layered thesping skills that include subtle humor, anxiety-laden escapes and brash, shameless powerhouse speeches to convince the 800 lb. gorilla powers that be that he does indeed have communication with Hughes with Alfred Molina providing strong comedic support as his hapless accomplice.
Lasse Hallstrom directs with a fresh, brisk hand that gets him back into more successful territory after the ho-hum missteps ‘An Unfinished Life’ and ‘Casanova’. Of course I’ve never been a fan of Hallstrom’s somewhat cloying recent successes like ‘The Cider House Rules’ and ‘Chocolat’, so for me, ‘The Hoax’ is more a return to his ‘My Life as Dog’ days and his first few American pics ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ and ‘Something To Talk About’ where his lively European sensibilities blended well with the content.
The plot, scripted by William Wheeler and based on Irving’s own memoirs about the ‘hoax’ in which he served a eighteen-month old jail sentence for fraud, deftly weaves in and around Irving’s recollections of the events as well as the political happenings of the early seventies and also touches on some key events from Hughes’ daunting life.
It’s 1971 and the Vietnam War and Nixon monopolize the press but Clifford Irving (Gere) is all cocky smiles as he gets preliminary word from McGraw Hill publisher Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) that his latest novel will be picked up. When news that the deal falls through, Irving’s crestfallen but intent on coming up with something else. With the assistance of his faithful researcher Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina) and his hippie wife Edith (a blonde Marcia Gay Harden), they rack their brains to try and come up with the “book of the century”, the brave promise he already made to Andrea about an idea he will present to her at a bowling alley.
Fate steps in, quite literally, as Irving catches his shoe on the painted sticky cover of a magazine featuring Howard Hughes. With the public knowledge of Hughes as a recluse and as somebody that has recent legal troubles with his TWA airlines, Irving takes the unabashed challenge of coming up with an elaborate scheme: he’ll present himself to Andrea as the author of the official autobiography of Hughes, a plan he first sets in motion with Andrea through forgery - well-made handwritten letters from the man himself.
The majority of the plot consists of Irving and his bumbling pal Suskind, using only meticulous research and impressive gall, attempting and usually succeeding in persuading the many wary suits at McGraw Hill and Time-Life that what they have is genuine. McGraw Hill head honcho Shelton Fisher (Stanley Tucci) realizes the stakes of being made a fool of but the chance that this is real, and the greed derived from such a scenario wins out – particularly in light of how Irving calmly jumps through every credibility-challenging hoop that comes his way.
Funny scenes develop along the way with a ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ vibe, where Irving usually has to use his charm and coolness to overcome the stuttering, nervousness of his partner in crime Suskind. When things get hectic, it wouldn’t be unusual to find Suskind hiding in the stairwell desperately needing to go to the bathroom.
By the time the last third rolls around, more dramatic and effectively tense threads start to unwind as the hoax appears to come crashing around all involved. With a dubious sense of irony, the film even goes so far to suggest that maybe Irving himself was duped by Hughes into provoking President Nixon to indirectly save TWA and also motivating actions that would lead to Watergate.
Tonally similar to Spielberg’s ‘Catch Me If You Can’, where DiCaprio (who will go on to play Hughes in Scorsese’s ‘The Aviator) plays the continually fraudulent Frank Abagnale Jr. as well as Jonathan Demme’s underrated 1980 pic ‘Melvin & Howard’, another stranger than fiction true story revolving around Hughes where Paul le Mat’s common man claims a letter naming him heir to Hughes’ fortune, ‘The Hoax’ provides a constant, always on the move vibe with a great soundtrack by Carter Burwell which goes to great lengths to really establish the period and temper of the scene with the most effective use yet of The Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ in a film.
The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special Features include the ‘Stranger than Fiction’ Making-of featurette, that provide a number of short interviews with cast and crew as well as showing some short period vignettes of the real Cliff Irving sitting down on 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace and lying his face off. Some of this is repeated in ‘Mike Wallace: Reflections of a Con’ where Mike admits that he was duped and that he even to this day likes the guy. ‘Deleted Scenes w/Commentary’ and an ‘Extended Scene’ are next with two audio commentaries from Director Hallstrom and Writer Wheeler and Producers Leslie Holleran and Josh Maurer, respectively, finishing off the bonus content.
Well-paced direction, a solid script that provides many subtle moments of humor as well a generous amount of tension combined with a great cast all at the top of their game make this an easily recommended pic that didn’t quite get the attention it deserved on theatrical release due to a tough marketing subject matter and a spotty release by Miramax.
The Hoax is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)