Con Artists

 

THE CHRISTOPHERS (B+) - Octogenarian Ian McKellan absolutely devours a sumptuous script as a grumpy old artist defending his legacy against his scheming children and the art forger they hire to embellish his hidden archives.

IMDb offers a concise plot summary: "The children of a once famous artist hire a forger to complete some unfinished, long ago abandoned canvases so they'll have an inheritance when he dies." Veteran screenwriter Ed Solomon ("Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Men in Black") dishes up a sunny noir that is lighthearted (even silly, at times) but grounded in the genuine emotions of artists defending their work. 

 

Michaela Coel ("Mother Mary," TV's "Chewing Gum") goes toe-to-toe with McKellan the rascally thespian in a clever pas de deux between two powerful personalities. It is not a mystery going in that Coel's Lori Butler divulges the ruse to McKellan's Julian Sklar fairly early on in the proceedings. But that does not derail the intrigue.

Lori seems to have a motive for undermining Julian -- late in his career he was a nasty judge on a reality-TV art-contest program -- and she has the knowledge and skills to pull off the caper, whether he tries to stop her or not. Coel is a cool customer, gradually shedding layers of her character as she goes. She offsets the heat coming from McKellan, who unleashes reams of dialogue as he walks the line between temperamental genius and washed-up jerk. When he challenges her skills and asks her why she is so presumptuous as to think she could mimic his paintings, she replies blankly, "I guess that's where the art of it comes in."

The weak spot comes from Julian's bumbling offspring, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning as silly, petulant adults. You can also spot the seams at times in the script, and if you think too hard you might challenge some of its implausibilities. But the momentum of the film elbows all that aside, with one goal in mind: entertaining you. McKellan, especially, lavishes the opportunity to splay his character's id all over the screen. (One of several amusing traits of Julian's: He makes pocket money by recording Cameo messages for anyone who will hire him to do so; he is a geezer with just enough computer skills to be reckless.)

Director Steven Soderbergh lends his prodigious skills to keeping things taut and rollicking while wrapping it up in 100 locomotive minutes. This is old-fashioned story-telling, brought to you by a pair of heavyweight actors who know just how to bob and weave around each other.

NOTICE TO QUIT (B+) - Andy Singer is having a helluva day. It follows a helluva few months. He's a real estate broker in New York City who is about to get evicted from his apartment, and his daughter is about to move with her mother to Florida. It all comes to a head in this charming day-in-the-life of a man verging on a nervous breakdown.

 

This debut feature from writer-director Simon Hacker harks back to the New York films of the 1970s, as he chronicles the spiraling travails of his hapless hero on a muggy summer day. Andy is played by Michael Zegen (the husband in TV's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel") as a scam artist who strips the appliances from the empty apartments he shows, which is not nearly enough money to cover his back rent, since he hasn't closed a deal in months and is broke.

Andy's 10-year-old daughter, Anna (Kasey Bella Suarez), lands in his lap that morning, and she will accompany her estranged dad on his odyssey through the streets and apartment buildings of New York, anxiously observing his spiral toward a rock bottom. She just wants to go to the zoo, but he is perpetually harried as he desperately tries to get any warm body to sign on the bottom line for one of the dumps he has on offer.

As Andy criss-crosses the city, you might develop a deep appreciation for Hacker's eye for locations. A producer on John Wilson's "How To" HBO series, he has an affinity for New York's sweaty underbelly, where an AC window unit is considered the gold standard of urban living. Several times Andy (with and without Anna) races through the streets. We get aerial shots looking down from walk-up units. It's less about the city's skyline than its unforgiving streets.

In addition to Andy's unraveling real estate career (he's also a has-been model/actor, often recognized for a toothpaste ad, with featured posters that have been defaced around town), there is the threat from the heavies who muscle him for appliances they can pilfer. That group is led by the boorish Jed, played with jabroni ferver by filmmaker Michael Angelo Cavino ("The Climb," "Splitsville"). We also get an extended cameo from comedian Robert Klein, who is in fine form as Andy's artist father who is reluctant to help bail out his flailing son.

Little Suarez keeps up well with Zegen as the doe-eyed daughter who is practical enough to recognize her father's failings, but emotionally vulnerable enough to try again to forge a connection with her dad, even if he has no custody rights and cannot fight her mother's move to Florida. It's debatable whether their final bonding moment late in the film earns the sentimental payoff Hacker is going for, but the characters do feel authentic by the end. 

There were times I seriously questioned the timeline and logistics of rushing all over Manhattan in one hectic day, but again, the film scores enough points across 90 minutes that it's easy to fall under its spell. (It's like a white-collar version of "Bunny," if that helps.) I was sold. (Streaming on Mubi.)

BONUS TRACK

The ubiquitous Jack Antonoff contributes a few songs to the "Notice to Quit" soundtrack, including a track from his band Bleachers, "Strange Behavior":