It’s been awhile since I’ve watched a movie worth writing about.  True, I’ve been embroiled in Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica for a couple of weeks which has consumed much of my time, but the movies I have tried to watch have sucked.  Yet, not sucked enough to write about them. So, it is with great pleasure that there was a movie that I’ve seen recently that was pretty darn good.  Not great, mind you, but really good. 

The Hoax stars Richard Gere in the only type of role he should ever play:  the smarmy, charismatic bastard.  It’s the role that he seems born to play.  In this version of SCB, he is Clifford Irving a struggling novelist who comes up with the idea to fake Howard Hughes’ memoirs.  See, it’s the early ’70’s and Hughes is deep into his wearing-tissue-boxes-as-slippers, drinking-his-own-urine phase while he’s being sued left and right for his dealings with the airlines.  Howard Hughes won’t come out publicly to discredit the memoir, because he’s crazy, and he can’t sue, because if he appears in a court of law he’ll get sued for something.  It’s the perfect con.

Clifford Irving wouldn’t be able to pull off this stunt, without the help of his friend and researcher, Dick Suskind, played brilliantly by Alfred Molina.  Together, Clifford and Dick travel, research, lie and basically act like literary cowboys while they put together the memoir.  For Clifford, this kind of con is second nature.  He is familiar with cheating on his wife and lying to people to get ahead, because he’s a SCB.  But for Dick, this is one part adventure and two parts nightmare.  Molina effectively portrays Suskind’s sweaty thrill and sweatier guilt as the stakes get higher.

Even thought the movie’s based on a true story, I won’t ruin the ending. (There’s a pretty brilliant power play that may or may not have taken place, that’s too detailed to describe here.)  Suffice to say, that this is a more engrossing mystery and con movie than anything I’ve watched recently.