Sharper
Benjamin Caron’s “Sharper,” which will have a limited theatrical release this weekend before streaming on Apple TV+ next week, is the kind of movie that makes you wonder what Julianne Moore and John Lithgow would have done with an ’80s David Mamet screenplay like “House of Games” or “The Spanish Prisoner.” It’s one of those narrative jigsaw puzzles that feels as if it got turned into a streaming series somewhere in the mid-’10s. So there’s some fun just in watching it work itself out, bouncing among different cons until the last one — or at least, the last one we’re shown falls into place.
The problem is, Mamet-style tough talking puzzle movies are harder to pull off than they look, Gatewood and Tanaka simply don’t have the dialogue necessary to make this more than its foundation. Mamet used language as a weapon; his characters withheld and revealed like Ricky Jay doing a magic trick. This film wants to do that too, but it only works as a diversion.
Justice Smith plays Tom, a soft-spoken young man who works at an old bookstore selling first editions of famous novels. One night a beautiful young woman named Sandra (relative newcomer Briana Middleton, more than holding her own opposite some legends) walks into Tom’s shop and they immediately hit it off. They flirt and go out on dates, entering into a relationship quickly. Within weeks Sandra is meeting Tom’s friends and saying I love you, then she reveals she has brother in trouble. He needs some cash insane cash. After the danger for Sandra’s brother escalates,Tom agrees to get Richard involved: Richard being his extremely wealthy father (played by John Lithgow). Sandra disappears with the money.
But don’t worry about spoiling anything: That’s not even close to where this script stops twisting itself around. There are con games inside con games inside con games in “Sharper,” and they’re strung together with some weak connective tissue, revealed to us through the Gatewood/Tanaka vignette structure which zeroes in on one character at a time, showing us how he or she is connected to the bigger picture. The second vignette jumps back to show us how Sandy became Sandra under the tutelage of a slimy con artist named Max (Sebastian Stan), who has ties to Madeline (Julianne Moore), who just married you guessed it Richard.
“Sharper” starts with a definition “One who lives by their wits.” That should give you an idea of how smart this script thinks it is. It’s one of those Black List-approved chronologically jumbled narratives that streamers love because they reveal something new every few minutes like clockwork. But there is joy in watching the tick tocking of a thriller machine. We don’t get movies like this very often anymore, and I enjoyed watching the twists even if I could see what was coming long before it got there.
And yet “Sharper” is easily seen as a little dull. The cons are a bit unbelievable, especially the ease with which the final one is executed, and these characters are pretty shallowly drawn. It’s another one of those cases where Mamet got so much mileage out of incisive dialogue. I don’t need extensive backstory if the dialogue can convey that these people are smart enough and street savvy enough to pull off their con games. “Sharper” doesn’t quite connect those dots.
It’s also too stylish by half. This is a sleek affair that pretends to traffic in desperate people but rarely lets its characters sweat, it has too little dirt under its fingernails and too little blood pumping through its veins. It needs to feel more dangerous to be truly effective.
All of that said, it goes down smooth. Most of the talented cast is minimally challenged by the script even if it’s fun to see Moore chewing on something that allows her to be more playful but Middleton has a lot to juggle as Sandra/Sandy goes through several iterations in this twisty tale, and she’s very engaging in a way that makes me want to see her again in a similar project maybe something pointier.
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