"We're all conning ourselves in one way or another."

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2014)

On the opening screen we read the words "Some of this actually happened". Indeed, the Seventies hair styles and clothes suck you in in such a way that if you lived during the era, the story almost seems like it could be believable. Take the name Carmine Ippolito - it sounds so familiar yet...
I thought this was just such a brash, audacious flick pulled off by some of the more talented con artists of the current crop of young actors. Christian Bale is always changing appearances for his pictures, Bradley Cooper is right in his element as a smarmy FBI agent, and Amy Adams is both gorgeous and repulsive at the same time. And Jennifer Lawrence - I'll go out on a limb here to say that when she planted a big wet one on Amy Adams' kisser, that was one of the most outrageous moments in screen history, right after that monologue on f...'d up, poisonous choices. I had to pause the picture right there for a moment to soak it all in.
With ten Oscar nominations it's a shame the picture didn't score in any category but it was a pretty tough year with plenty of bold flicks and outstanding performances. I'm going to watch this one again just to catch some of those great lines like Irving (Bale) describing wife Rosalyn (Lawrence) - "She was the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate". Wasn't that just brilliant? It's a line any guy could use to describe his significant other. There's only one let down when the whole thing is all over, we never do find out how the ice fishing story ends.