The Swindlers

Jang Doo-chil was the country's biggest swindler; he took the money of thousands of people and was announced dead. There is no body. Prosecutor Park is looking for him. Hwang Ji-sung, whose father was one of the victims of that fraud, wants to settle his own account. The prosecutor makes him an offer: build a team and find the man. The team has a forger, an escort and a former convict. Everybody is lying to everybody and who is using whom is not clear until the end. Jang Chang-won wrote and directed. Hyun Bin, Yoo Ji-tae, Bae Sung-woo, Park Sung-woong and Nana are in the cast. It is a South Korean production. The film came out in 2017 and found a wide audience in Korea. The narrative uses a setup that recalls real fraud cases. The matter it treats is the protection over a fraud; the real question is not who takes the money but the institutions that shield him. The film follows the heist shape; a team is assembled, a plan is made, and the viewer does not see all of the plan until the end. The narrative keeps explaining its own construction in flashback, and the method repeats. None of the characters is quite likeable. There is little action; the narrative rests on games of wits. The ending closes on one last turn. Its limit is originality; the setup is familiar, the turns predictable, and the characters shallow. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean crime films and stories about confidence tricks. Who it is not for: it is familiar, convoluted, and the ending cold.