The Sting Parent Guide
One of the best caper films ever made with a script that twists and turns and never breaks the tension.
Parent Movie Review
It’s 1936 and Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a successful grifter (a small-time con artist). Together with Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones), he’s perfected a scam that involves a fake mugging and playing bait and switch with what looks like a large amount of money. After a particularly successful con, they count up their ill-gotten gains and discover that they are holding $11,000. The partners are on easy street and Coleman plans his retirement…and then they learn that the guy they swindled worked for Doyle Lonnegan, head of an Irish crime syndicate. Retribution is swift - Coleman is killed and Hooker is on the run.
Desperate for safe cover and revenge against Lonnegan, Hooker flees to Chicago where he joins forces with Coleman’s friend, Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). Gathering Gondorff’s crew, the pair plan an audacious con – they are going to sting Lonnegan for half a million dollars. But the cops are on Hooker’s tail and so are Lonnegan’s goons. Can Hooker evade his pursuers and can he and Gondorff scam Lonnegan and live to con another day?
The Sting is easily one of the best caper films ever made. Its brilliant script twists and turns and never breaks the tension. Redford and Newman are flawless as the reckless young grifter and world-weary, experienced confidence man. And the ragtime soundtrack is one of the most memorable ever recorded. This is a smart, fast-moving production that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats for the full two hour run time.
There are, however, some potential downsides when it comes to family viewing. The movie has a PG rating, but it came out in 1973, nine years before the PG-13 rating debuted. And that is a more appropriate rating for this film. It is not suitable for kids, being much too long and complex. And even with teen viewers, parents will want to consider a brief scene in a burlesque theater which involves women clad only in skimpy panties and pasties (which they jiggle vigorously). The biggest area of concern is violence, although there is much less than could be expected considering the genre. There are some scenes of physical assault and several shootings although none of them are terribly gory. And, of course, parents might not be happy with a movie which glamorizes crime: Hooker and Gondorff are, after all, con men working on the wrong side of the law.
That being said, parents of teens who are looking for a quick-witted, exciting film that keeps them thinking and who want to watch one of the best, can turn to The Sting with confidence. There are no rip-offs here. This is the real deal…and if you don’t believe me, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.
Directed by George Roy Hill. Starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman. Running time: 129 minutes. Theatrical release December 25, 1973. Updated May 4, 2019Watch the trailer for The Sting
Another movie about two con men is Dirty Rotten Scandals, starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, both swindling women on the French Riviera.
In Ocean’s Eleven, Danny Ocean (Brad Pitt) assembles a crew of con artists to help him pull off an extremely elaborate crime – stealing a hundred million dollars from an underground vault. Ocean’s 8 gives Danny’s sister, Debbie (Sandra Bullock) as she organizes the heist of a $150 million Cartier necklace.
The Sting features cons ripping off an extremely unsympathetic character – one who audiences will agree deserves what he gets. In Going In Style, three retirees discover that their pension fund has been liquidated after a corporate bankruptcy. So they decide to rob the bank handling the fund and get the money they worked for and to which they feel morally entitled.
Con movies rely on deceiving the mark. In Now You See Me, the thieves are magicians who use their skills to bamboozle anyone who tries to figure out how they are emptying bank vaults.
The Sting
Rating & Content Info
Why is The Sting rated PG? The Sting is rated PG by the MPAA
Violence: Two men fake a mugging so they can swindle a third. A police officer attacks a main character and throws him into the ground, leaving him with a bloody face. The cop demands a bribe. A man is apparently pushed out of a window: he is shown dead and bloody on the ground below. A man is shot at several times; he gets away unharmed. A woman is shot in the head and dies; some blood is seen. A policeman points a gun at a man in a phone booth. The man jams the cop’s arm in the door. A man gets shot in the chest and dies. Two men are shot in a crowded room.
Sexual Content: A scene is set in a burlesque show: women are seen wearing panties and pasties and shaking their chests. There are brief references to prostitution and some scenes are set in a brothel although the women and their clients are rarely seen and no sexual activity is shown. A main character shows up uninvited at a woman’s lodgings. She lets him into her room and they are shown in bed; she is asleep and he is laying in bed and his bare chest is visible. Another main character is shown in bed with a sleeping woman.
Profanity: Approximately seven mild and moderate profanities, including four terms of Deity are heard in the film. A couple of racial slurs are also used.
Alcohol / Drug Use: Characters are frequently seen drinking in social situations. A main character is shown hungover. A man carries a liquor bottle and pretends to be intoxicated. A woman serves alcohol in the bar of a brothel.
Page last updated May 4, 2019
The Sting Parents' Guide
The film justifies Gondorff and Hooker’s con because Lonnegan has killed Luther Coleman. Basically, the idea is that he deserves what he gets. Do you agree that is acceptable to swindle a criminal? Do two wrongs make a right? Given that the police are so corrupt, revenge seems like Hooker’s only option. If the police were an ethical, professional force would your attitude to the sting be any different?
Loved this movie? Try these books…
Want to know more about the environment in which The Sting was set? In 1940, David Maurer published The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. This book dives deeply into the world of confidence men in the 1930s, bringing their scams and jargon to life.
Do you want to read about another revenge con? The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con by Amy Reading tells the true story of J. Frank Norfleet, a rancher who seeks revenge against men who swindled him in two different phony stock scams.
Catch Me If You Can by Frank W Abagnale tells the real life story of a young man, who starting at 17 years old, begins a career of fraud, forgery and impersonation that saw him pretending to be an airline pilot, doctor, and lawyer while being chased by law enforcement across the US and Europe.
For a fictional spin on cons, turn to Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man: His Masquerade. This novel follows a con man as he switches from one disguise to another and swindles his fellow passengers on a Mississippi River steamboat
Home Video
Related home video titles:
Another movie about two con men is Dirty Rotten Scandals, starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, both swindling women on the French Riviera.
In Ocean’s Eleven, Danny Ocean (Brad Pitt) assembles a crew of con artists to help him pull off an extremely elaborate crime – stealing a hundred million dollars from an underground vault. Ocean’s 8 gives Danny’s sister, Debbie (Sandra Bullock) as she organizes the heist of a $150 million Cartier necklace.
The Sting features cons ripping off an extremely unsympathetic character – one who audiences will agree deserves what he gets. In Going In Style, three retirees discover that their pension fund has been liquidated after a corporate bankruptcy. So they decide to rob the bank handling the fund and get the money they worked for and to which they feel morally entitled.
Con movies rely on deceiving the mark. In Now You See Me, the thieves are magicians who use their skills to bamboozle anyone who tries to figure out how they are emptying bank vaults.