Watched: 04/18/2026
Format: DVD from the Library
Viewing: Second
Director: George Roy Hill
The Sting (1973) reunites the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid team of Robert Redford, Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill for a 1930's period piece film about a small-time grifter who - when a grift leads to robbing the mob sees a friend killed - teams up with Paul Newman's veteran (and much more professional) conman in order to pull one over on a mob boss played by Robert Shaw.
It's a clockwork script that has a steel-trap ending that's tough to beat. The closest I can point to in structure from movies I was around for is probably the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11.
There's not a ton of character building in the movie, the runtime spent on the execution of the long con - we don't even see the planning, just the Rube Goldberg plan in motion. And that's plenty. Redford gets the most screentime and characterization, but even that isn't exactly a script that makes you wonder how his character grew and changed. What we see of who he really is feels a little thin, but that's not really the point of the film.
