If the idea of a sweet old lady (who talks to her dead husband's portrait) out-conning a pair of con men sounds like an original story proposal, you've been living under a rock since just prior to the days when Tweety Bird and Granny whooped IL' Sylvester's conniving butt. But OLDEST CON GAMES doesn't stop until it buries us with the story's real core of schmaltz, and ends with the lady's ghost husband appearing, as a vision, to give her a wink and a nudge. You old darling counterfeiters. If only the film was not also a complete phony.
And dear filmmaker: what's with the Ridley Scott-inspired extreme backlighting? There's nostalgia lighting - hey folks, it's the late '50s - and then there's lighting that looks like an atom bomb has been detonated on the front lawn. Might want to make that distinction when you make your next short film: may I suggest a Jazz Age period comedy in which kindly old Sean Connery must safeguard a weepy eight-year-old from a pair of bumbling gangsters?
And dear filmmaker: what's with the Ridley Scott-inspired extreme backlighting? There's nostalgia lighting - hey folks, it's the late '50s - and then there's lighting that looks like an atom bomb has been detonated on the front lawn. Might want to make that distinction when you make your next short film: may I suggest a Jazz Age period comedy in which kindly old Sean Connery must safeguard a weepy eight-year-old from a pair of bumbling gangsters?