"The Hoax pulls off the delicate trick of dutifully damning its protagonist's conduct." - Nick Schager

An interesting and enthralling film, with great performances all around.

A very fine character study as rendered by Richard Gere, with superlative supporting work(as always) from Alfred Molina... Fun!

Good story with an average filming.

Excellent filmmaking. A 'good movie' exemplefied.

A fluid and interesting movie, but nothing spectacular in any way.

When the film focuses of the mechanics of the hoax and the delighted mischief of the co-conspirators, it achieves a nice energy. Then the backstories and psychological complications and messy romantic entanglements begin to swamp the film. Irving is played by Richard Gere delivers nice work as a charming huckster. Hallstrom, on the other hand, has now completely devolved from the elegant simplicity of films like Once Around and What's Eating Gilbert Grape to a style that is purely pedestrian.

In the end there's not much left in your hand. Interesting story didn't turn into an interesting movie.

A fairly lighthearted affair that turns dark too little, too late. It’s a 'true story' con movie that easily passes the time, but perhaps fails to bring to the fore, what is really supposed to be so interesting about what is essentially two mentally ill people abusing each other and their surroundings.

Good film.

"This is the best biopic about my life so far." - Howard Hughes

not so good

Nice paced diversionary film. Also Alfred Molino's best performance since "Raiders" (ok, probably not true).

It's a great setup for the first hour or so and, while the ending is somewhat of a letdown, it's a perfectly enjoyable slice of entertainment. Gere's work is pretty good, but it's really Molina who steals the show, especially by the time the whole thing switches into a slightly confused, Beautiful Mind-style character study that doesn't quite manage to hold itself up.

note: watched a little over half and turned it off. Poor screenplay and Hallstrom's attempt to create a sense of the era w/cuts of television footage was too much to take. Carter Burwell's score was good but use of standard pop/rock songs was a little too been there/done that. too bad - source material is really incomparable. should've been great.

very entertaining story based on actual events.

A relatively good and interesting film build on a spectacular story.