The Hoax (2007)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 150
Fresh: 128 | Rotten: 22
The Hoax is an enormously appealing film, thanks to the uniformly excellent performances and Lasse Hallström's zippy direction.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 35
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 5
The Hoax is an enormously appealing film, thanks to the uniformly excellent performances and Lasse Hallström's zippy direction.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 30,302
My Rating
Movie Info
Director Lasse Hallström offers a brisk account of the scam that shook the literary community with this semi-comic biographical drama starring Richard Gere as the man who sold a fraudulent biography of Howard Hughes to publishing giant McGraw Hill. The year was 1971; the Vietnam War was raging and protestors filled the streets. Clifford Irving (Gere) was a struggling author with bold ambitions, and the determination needed to see them through. When Irving's attempt to sell his latest novel to
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Cast
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Richard Gere
Clifford Irving -
Alfred Molina
Dick Suskind -
Hope Davis
Andrea Tate -
Marcia Gay Harden
Edith Irving -
Stanley Tucci
Shelton Fisher -
Julie Delpy
Nina -
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Mamie Gummer
Jane
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All Critics (155) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (137) | Rotten (22) | DVD (18)
It's hard to get a fix on what Hallstrom had in mind.
Top CriticHighly entertaining.
I've never been a fan of Richard Gere, but he gives the performance of his career as Clifford Irving.
Ultimately, these smart, zeitgeisty riffs are just as implausible as the idea of an authorised Howard Hughes autobiography.
... a serious and amusing black farce that does without obvious heroes or villains ...
Gere persuasively portrays a guy whose confidence blossoms as he makes the discovery that as his lies grow so does the ease with which he tells them.
The Hoax is the real thing. It's a breezy, engaging caper. It's like a heist film of the 1970s, but the pilferers are literary men not bank robbers.
Que Irving queira se sentir importante, é compreensível; que sua suposta cinebiografia compartilhe da fraude, nem tanto.
An amazing story filled with twists, turns, intrigue, betrayals, hallucinations and close calls.
Despite good energy and a source with ample potential, the film is held back by trite ideas.
Despite making Clifford Irving into a grubby suburbanite rather than the mischievous Abby Hoffman figure he really was, the film is generally entertaining a good introduction to the greatest literary hoax of all time.
Lasse Hallstrom directs with a looseness and a snap that has been absent from his recent Oscar-bait productions, and Gere sells Irving's spiel like a con man caught up in his own pitch.
...breezy, light-hearted...
Very enjoyable.
At times the film becomes more about Richard Gere and his Oscar grab than about the story... But the bait-and-switch moments as Irving plays the media are the highlights.
Amoral con artist's true tale will pull adults in.
A thoroughly enjoyable ride.
Richard Gere is at his best in years, here, turning a remorseless lout into a likable underdog.
Amazing though the story is, it would be nothing without Gere's slippery, insinuating -- if not precisely likable -- performance as Irving.
Audience Reviews for The Hoax
William Wheeler's fantastic screenplay does have loads of potential and offers a perfect chance for Hallström to stretch his muscles into thriller genre but unfortunately Hallström misses his opportunity. There are some fantastic dreamlike or maybe even nightmarish tones here which reminded me of 70's paranoia thriller's like Parallax View or The Conversation, but those moments are very few and they get buried under uneven mixture of comedy and melodrama.
The Hoax is a mess that never quite comes together and while it could have been something great it never achieves that greatness. Overal this is still solid filmmaking and offers us one of the best performances from underrated Richard Gere. Many characters are made into caricatures that takes away lot of film's credibility but Gere manages to shine all the way as a slimy Clifford Irving whose entire life turns into one big hoax itself. This is easy film to sit through and has entertaining moments, just don't expect it to be nothing more than that.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- La gran estafa (ES)
