Confidence - 4

A somewhat typical caper movie, where lying, manipulation and trust are the main issues. The main complaint that I have is that movies of this sort cannot help but try to manipulate the audience as well, since we are in that world for two hours, we have to make up the characters life story and traits during the movie, rather than letting the characters develop through the story in order to help us understand what is going on. Once the director and writer decide that you, the viewer are on a need to know basis, then one can become lost in whatever they happen to be spinning. This seems to me to be deceptive storytelling and entraps one's imagination rather than opens it to new possibilities. Better to initially trust someone than to distrust even those closest to you. In movies this gets you killed, but in real life you share in others moral meaning and storied living, and ultimately learn to know yourself better. Love would be impossible if we lived in total distrust. A good dose of reality will not make us all-trusting, but rather better discerning of who others are and how to live in a world inhabited by a diversity of people connected though their human condition.