The Long Con..."Sneaky Pete"

Sneaky Pete (2015)

TV-MA

Starring Giovanni Ribisi, Marin Ireland, Shane McRae, Libe Barer, Michael Drayer, Peter Gerety, Margo Martindale, Bryan Cranston, Michael O'Keefe ,Ethan Embry

Created by Bryan Cranston & David Shore

The Story:

Marius (Ribisi) is doing time in prison. His cell mate, Pete (Embry) has spent the last few years talking to Marius all about his childhood growing up. Now that Marius is being released, he's back on the radar of Vince (Cranston) a man he owes a lot of money to, and Vince is holding Marius' brother, Eddie (Drayer) as collateral to keep Marius from running. Marius however decides to lay low, and utilizing his talents as a con man, he decides to head "home" and returns to the Bernhardt family as their long lost, haven't seen him since he was a little kid, cousin Pete.

It's hard to write a review of a series that focuses on a con-man as the lead character, so I'll keep it brief, and keep it short and avoid as many possible spoilers as I can.

For me, the show starts off a little slow, with a very deliberate pace.

Pete's family, while they all seemingly welcome him back home with open arms, there are a few that have their suspicions about him.

Not so much that he's not really Pete, but more that he's simply up to no good.

Ribisi does most of the heavy lifting as both Marius and Pete, juggling both personas with ease and a silver tongue that gets him both into and out of trouble at the drop of a hat.

The rest of the cast are a lot familiar character actors and new faces that flesh out their characters into a nice variety of supporting characters.

Even the villains in the show aren't just cardboard cutout caricatures. They all have depth to them.

Especially Cranston, who gets to be the most villainous of them all. If you're going to create a series, you might as well give  yourself the best part that isn't the star of the show.

He's a character that is likable, and yet terrifying, often at the same time.

It's a slow build, but by the halfway point, the story begins picking up so much momentum, you begin to wonder how it's all going to get resolved within the 10 episode season.

And then in the back of your mind, you begin to wonder how this can be anything more than 1 season long.

True to form though, Sneaky Pete doesn't disappoint on that front either.

This is an Amazon Studios original, and available to stream for those with Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: A-

"Art And Craft" Sounds Fun, But Was Ultimately Boring

Art and Craft (2014)

Not Rated

Starring Mark Landis, John Gapper

Directed by Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker

The Story:

Mark Landis is an excellent painter. He's so good, he's spent the last 30 years bequeathing master forgeries to libraries, museums and galleries over the years.  John Gapper is one of the curators that was duped. He's on a quest to expose Landis for the fraud that he is.

Sounds like a pretty cool con caper, right?

I thought so too!

I mean, just looking at the poster, it harkens back to Catch Me If You Can and this true story seemed like it had all the elements for a can't miss documentary.

Boy, was I wrong.

The material is served up with no charisma whatsoever.

It doesn't help that Landis himself is a quiet, unassuming guy.  The only thing he's ever done wrong is give away paintings that aren't real to museums, libraries, etc. over the last 3 decades.

He never took a dime for anything, therefore, he has technically committed no crimes.

Aside from Gapper, nobody else seemed to care.

After less than 20 minutes, I realized I didn't really care either, and clicked this one off and sent it back.

It's streaming on Amazon Prime if you want to give it a try.

Final Grade: D