8.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker.
Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw (I), Charles Durning, Ray WalstonDrama | 100% |
Period | 62% |
Heist | 21% |
Crime | 9% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
BD-Live
Mobile features
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
There’s a problem with knowing a film has a surprise or twist ending, especially if you are (like a certain reviewer is) a
know-it-all who always wants to figure things out before they’re revealed. This can lead to situations where, as with
The Sixth Sense, a film’s twist is described as so remarkable that any armchair sleuth worth his or her
detective’s salt will immediately start thinking about what it could be. (I, for example, immediately guessed the big
reveal at the end of The Sixth Sense before I ever even saw the film, simply based on the basic plot summaries
I had read.) While the ability to ferret out the misdirection and red herrings of screenwriting craft can provide a little
(and often pretty momentary) ego boost, it also has the effect of being a buzz kill, especially for those of you (like a
certain reviewer) who like to “announce” your solution just so those seeing the movie with you, like your spouse or
significant other for example, will know just how smart you really are. That’s why a film like The Sting is
such an incredibly bracing breath of fresh air. This is a film where, in the inimitable words of a certain reviewer’s spouse
who is sick of having her enjoyment spoiled by her know-it-all husband, you spend the bulk of the movie not really
knowing what’s going on, which is followed by a devastatingly effective series of reveals that paints everything that
has gone on in an exciting new light. The Sting is, for those who may have been living under a rock for
the past forty years or so, a film about a giant con gambit, and the term “con” itself is a perfect indicator of just how
brilliantly the film achieves its goals.
People hear the term “con” or “con man” and don’t really think about it, since the word “con” has so entered the public
lexicon that most simply accept the word at its face value as a synonym for “trick”, without really thinking about its
etymological genesis, which is a shortened form of the word “confidence”. A “con man” is therefore a
confidence man, a guy who sucks his “mark” into believing that he (the con man) has the mark’s best interests
at heart, only to later pull the rug out from under him and reveal that the mark has been taken for some (and at times
all) of what he’s worth. The confidence game works on two levels in The Sting. Old timer Henry
Gondorff (Paul Newman) takes up and comer Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) under his wing, weaving an elaborate con
which will hopefully defraud big time gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), a vicious thug who has had Johnny’s
former partner killed when Johnny and the partner mistakenly con one of Lonnegan’s money runners. But on a
completely meta-level, scenarist David S. Ward (who deservedly won one of the film’s seven Academy Awards for his
ingenious screenplay) is playing his own con game on the audience itself, leading the viewer merrily along into
believing one set of events is happening, when the film’s incredible denouement reveals that the audience, along with
Lonnegan, never really knew what hit them. (Don’t worry, no major spoilers will be posted in this review.)
The Sting is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While this catalog release will no doubt bring out the same cadres of Universal proponents and bashers in equal numbers that other 100th Anniversary releases have, it has to be stated that at least some of the "issues" (if that's even the right word) with The Sting have plagued previous home video releases and simply are repeated here. We'll address the usual Universal bugaboo of DNR in a moment, but what may actually be more noticeable to persnickety videophiles is this transfer's rather apparent softness, something that has also hampered this film's previous iterations on either standard DVD or HD-DVD. Some framings seem positively if very temporarily and slightly out of focus at times, and often times the far edges of the frame are strangely blurred as well. In comparing this release to the Legacy Edition DVD, these same anomalies are on the DVD release, and the Blu-ray either improves or exacerbates them, depending on what your particular reaction to inherent source element issues may be. There is also some minor artifacting that crops up along the way, notably quite a bit of shimmer and moiré on some of the cross-hatched suits the men wear (note Redford's tweedy jacket in the scene where he comes to collect Lonnegan's money on the train for a good example). On the plus side of things, there's an appreciable uptick in general clarity and sharpness (despite some occasional softness as mentioned above) and colors are especially impressive throughout this presentation. Though the film tends to work a palette exploiting mostly earth tones like brown and beige a lot of the time, some bright primaries like the red roses that Redford brings his putative girlfriend early in the film really pop magnificently and are quite vivid. In terms of DNR, Universal seems at least to be trying to respond to consumer complaints that it has been over aggressive in its denuding films of their inherent grain. This release treads a middle ground, where there's been some apparent noise reduction, but where fine grain structure is still noticeable. Will it please DNR-phobes? Probably not. But generally speaking this is a very solid looking transfer that may not have completely addressed some of the issues inherent in the source elements, but which is certainly the strongest this film has ever looked on home video.
The Sting's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio mix provides a fun and consistently immersive experience, and it's also surprisingly fulsome on the low end of things. The track has some really nice discrete channelization effects, and there's fine attention paid to various ambient environmental levels and effects. Listen for example to the sequence where Redford first meets Newman, entering the vast interior of the "funland" where the merry-go-round is housed. Voices and footsteps echo very realistically through the sound field and once the nearby elevated railway passes "outside," there's some very impressive LFE that pans quite convincingly from right to left as it rumbles by the actors. Dialogue is very cleanly and clearly presented and Marvin Hamlisch's Oscar winning adaptation of Scott Joplin tunes sounds fantastic. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is very wide.
When was the last time you had fun at the movies? The Sting flies by like a pleasant breeze, despite running around two hours, and once you've watched it once, chances are you'll want to see it again fairly soon afterward just to catch all the little moments the lead up to the film's wonderful set of surprises. This is one of those rare collaborations where just about everything went right. David S. Ward's screenplay is a marvel of misdirection and fine character beats, the performances are all top notch, and Hill directs with unobtrusive but very effective flair. Add in the colorful music of Scott Joplin, and you simply have a near perfect entertainment. This Blu-ray will probably come in for the typical Universal catalog bashing, but overall the transfer is very solid, the audio is stellar, and while some new Sting-centric supplements would have been appreciated, what's here is fine. Highly recommended.
Universal 100th Anniversary
1973
1973
1970s Best of the Decade
1973
1973
1973
1973
1973
Universal Essentials Collection
1973
2016
35th Anniversary Edition
1987
2013
2011
1972
2017
2002
2008
1996
2010
1990
1967
2014
2019
Extended Director's Cut
1984
1972
1944
2013
2016
2016