Ca$h (2008)

Director: Éric Besnard

Cast: Jean Dujardin, Jean Reno, Valeria Golino

Synopsis: After his brother is killed, Cash allies with a famous thief to pull of the biggest robbery in history.

The movie mostly takes place in France, so its title should really be Ca€h (or €ash), but no matter. The substitution of a symbol for a letter in the title gives a clue to just how derivative Ca$h is of earlier films, most notably the Ocean’s 11 franchise. It certainly takes place in the same never-never-land as Soderbergh’s movies: some slick, glossy distortion of the real world that never existed beyond the confines of a (wannabe) Hollywood scriptwriter; one that’s filled with beautiful people intent on cheating one another, for some reason.

Lead beautiful person is the perpetually smiling title character (Jean Dujardin – The Artist, The Wolf of Wall Street), a con man intent on avenging the murder of his younger brother, another grifter whose failed scam cost him his life. Cash doesn’t want to kill the killer of his brother, though – he just wants to con them into a position in which they would prefer to be dead. So his team get to work, but it’s not long before a fraud police officer (Valeria Golino) under investigation from Internal Affairs wants in on the action…

It’s funny how movie con-men only seem to prey on the bad guys these days. It’s so that the filmmakers can invite us to admire the ingenuity of protagonists who are nothing more than deceitful thieves beneath the superficial charm. Everyone is conning everyone in Ca$h – or at least they seem to be. It’s difficult to keep track, to be honest, as double-crossers are double-crossed by those they double-crossed – a kind of double-double-double cross, if you like. And that’s where the film falls down – it tries to be too clever by over-complicating the plot and making it nigh on impossible for the audience to tie up the loose ends. The performances are winning, though, and the women are gorgeous.

(Reviewed 13th September 2015)