Have Confidence in this film

Confidence is a tight, fast-paced crime world film that combines a bit of generic with a bit of creative and, most importantly, a lot of great acting. It's a mélange of traditional ideas, new-fangled crime techniques, stirred lightly then poured onto the main theme: Dustin Hoffman and Edward Burns.

Yes, Confidence is a fairly simple recipe, but the tense action and, of course, the surprise twist ending—requisite in any modern crime flick—help spice it up quite a bit. Not original enough to be labeled a masterpiece in any way, Confidence pulls through almost entirely on excitement and stellar performance value, no easy feat.

Hoffman and Burn leads the well-cast team of actors as criminals the King and Jack Vig, respectively. Jake is a fairly small-time crook who uses guile and confidence (duh) to con his unlucky victims out of money, respect, or anything else they might have to lose. Unfortunately for him, his most recent victim happens to be connected to the elusively powerful King, who takes Jake's meddling none too kindly.

Avoiding certain death, Jake decides to surprise the sleazy, gum-chewing King by paying him an upfront visit. His end deal comes out much better then his previous option of corpsehood: Jack will run a con on one of King's enemies rather than return the King's missing money.

Gathering up his crime cronies, Jake prepares to run his most high stakes con yet: a multi-million dollar gig on the big-scale crooked businessman Robert Forster. But two new conmen have joined the team of three: one of the King's men along with the more desirable (at least in Jake's eyes) bombshell brunette Lily whose smoky brown eyes conceal a rather shady persona. Needless to say, she fits in with the crew pretty well, especially leader Jake.

The scam is to siphon a large sum of money into a foreign account and through various other sub-scams bring it back to America- and back to the King. Or at least that's what Jake's supposed to do. The tension and stakes keep mounting as Jake turns the game around and changes just who's in charge—him or the King-- in classic "I'm going to have my cake and eat it too" attitude.

As the end nears, the power structures of who is "winning" switch so frequently and so intensely that we're really not sure how the whole extravaganza's going to end—except that Jake will end up dead, since he narrates the entire film after showing his corpse at the beginning.

Burns is sharp and conniving as Jake, portraying him as a bit more clean-cut, a bit more honest than the deceptively friendly King whose odd appearance and unexpected actions all seem part of a much larger game. Who comes out on top and who comes out the biggest trickster in the end is all part of the Confidence experience. Just know in advance that all those twists and turns might not come as such a surprise— if you've ridden the Two Face once, a second ride won't really blow your mind all that much.

Confidence (98 minutes, at area theaters) is rated R for profanity and violence