Review of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) by Jeffrey C — 02 Oct 2010

The comedy film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is directed by Frank Oz and stars Steve Martin and Michael Caine. The film takes place in the modern day French Riviera.

The films starts off with a French man, Lawrence Jamieson (Caine), performing a con on a young, rich woman. He sits next to the woman in a casino and they play roulette together, Lawrence bets on all the same numbers as the woman. When he loses all his money he tells his associate that he would like to sell his ring for some more money, and to that his associate replies that he can't sell the royal ring. So Lawrence leaves the table and the woman follows. Lawrence tells her that he in facts is a Prince and is trying to raise money to help save the people of his country. She eventually gives him a large sum of money to help out the cause. Then Lawrence goes on a train and watches how Freddy Benson cons a woman into buying him a meal by saying how he is saving money to help his grandmother. After a series of events Freddy takes lessons from Lawrence even though Lawrence is secretly trying to get him to leave the area because he does not want Freddy to ruin the con hunt for him. Then these two dirty rotten scoundrels make a bet to see who is the better con artist...

The screenplay for this film was really quite witty and clever. It was entertaining the whole way through and the characters were very evenly balanced. By that I mean that there really was not one character I favored the whole way through until really the end I chose a side. The jokes were solid and I thought the absolute ending was brilliant. I thought part of the end was predictable but then it just took that and brought it to a new level. A very delightful screenplay and it was converted delightfully to the screen.

The direction for this film by Frank Oz was also quite good. He got great comedic performances from his leads and also kept a film that could have easily been drawn out and boring entertaining. There was really no complex shots in this film but none were really required because it was not trying to be an epic film or something of that sort. What made the direction truly great, and all great comedies great is the reaction shots. They were all perfectly timed and just so effective. Oz proved that he is a comedic force to be reckoned with.

The acting in this film was hilarious, enjoyable, and so easy to get sucked into. Caine was great as Lawrence Jamieson using several different accents brilliantly and making it so easy to like him as a person even though he makes a living out of stealing other people's money. He is the cultured French man who also loves the art of the con. Steve Martin was also wonderful as Freddy Benson who was the amateur con artist that only had really one trick up his sleeve but had to compete in the big league against Lawrence. He provided most of the great reaction shots and to tell you the truth I forgot that both of the two were acting and just got sucked into the film.

Overall I give this film a solid 8/10. I would recommend this to anyone who loves a smart, entertaining comedy.