Overrated

Fantastic!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

*Spoiler/plot- The Sting II, 1983. A group of con artists wish to revenge a friend's death by a mob boss and concoct a 'Sting' to teach the crime boss a lesson by taking his money and punishing him.*Special Stars- Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis, Terri Garr, Karl Malden, Oliver Reed.*Theme- Your friends are your best help.*Trivia/location/goofs- Sequel. Roller Coaster scenes filmed at Santa Cruz Beach Amusement park. Look out for: The famous band leader Harry James plays a band leader. Cassandra (Elivra mistress of the Dark) Peterson is the detective Sargent O'Malley's girlfriend.*Emotion- I love confidence tricksters films: 'Flim Flam Man', 'The Sting' and others. Unfortunately this film is more like a TV movie or B-movie 'Sting' version. The casting, acting writing, and staging is clearly second rate. Watching this plot, you can obviously see that the producers tried to duplicate everything good from the first film element by element. It's just too plodding, pedestrian, and boring. Another sad and bad film sequel that is uncelebrated or remembered.

The movie lacks the polish of the original but I thought it was very entertaining. How can you go wrong with Jackie Gleason? Mac Davis played the confused confidence man to a T. He always seemed to be just a little behind everyone else. This movie seems to share characters names with the original "Sting" but the names could have been completely different and probably should have been as this would have let the movie stand or fall on it's own merit. I saw this movie actually before I saw the original and maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much more than some of the other reviews that I have read. The double crossing and conning the con men seem to fall into place easily and being naive as I am, I was surprised when Torres shows up at the train station for his cut. I'll just say this, This is one of those movies that I always watch when I find on TV when channel surfing, no matter where I come in, I always watch it to the end.

Of course "The Sting 2" is nowhere near the classic original. Of course Mac Davis and Jackie Gleason are no Newman and Redford. If you try to watch this film and keep the original completely out of mind you might enjoy it some. On it's own it's only average but not terrible.Jackie Gleason is ok in his role though he looks rather bored. I thought Mac Davis came off much better and after his terrific dramatic role in "North Dallas Forty" he pulled off comedy fairly well. I wish he had done more with his acting career. Oliver Reed is just right as the bad guy and it is a reminder that Reed was almost always worth watching in even the worst of films ("Venom" being a prime example).The big problem with "Sting 2" is the script which is odd seeing it was written by David S. Ward who wrote the Oscar winning original. The big difference is that when the first film came out 10 years earlier the surprises were fresh and all the cons were not revealed until the end. Here there's a con in virtually every scene so the audience is conditioned to not believe what they have just seen. It takes away from the true surprises that come.All in all there are worse movies to see. Lovers of the original should just steer clear but others may enjoy it. It's a mild diversion and nothing more.

Dismal follow up to the Oscar winner with Gleason and Davis poorly attempting to ignite the same flame as Newman and Redford as con men looking to get well and rich. Malden is laughable as a tough guy. Reed is no Robert Shaw by any means and it shows. Garr is passable, but she looks bored with David S. Ward's script, who oddly enough, wrote the script to the Oscar winner. What happened? While the score is catchy, the rest of the film is quite embarassing at times.