The Hoax

In 1971, a desperate author (Richard Gere) cons his publishing house, and the world, into believing he’s working with reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to write his life story.

The Hoax is a victim of its own premise: a story full of potential, but surprisingly little resonance. What should have been a story of one man’s daring and ambition, instead crumbles under its own weight, as too many threads stretch the story too thin. It’s not that the movie’s bad per se, just that it could have been much better.

Richard Gere gives his best performance in years as Clifford Irving, an increasingly desperate man who comes to justify his own lies by identifying with the Hughes persona he’s constructed for his book. Gere’s performance is the strength of the film, as his corrupt, but identifiable everyman is as intriguing as Hughes himself.

Supporting Gere is Alfred Molina who is well cast in an extraneous role. He seems to exist solely as a sounding board for Gere’s character, and his waffling later in the picture only serves to drag down the more interesting plot threads.

The script by William Wheeler does a great job at hinting and suggesting things, such as Hughes possible involvement in the hoax for his own ends, in an unobtrusive and entertaining way. In the end he wisely leaves it up to the viewer to decide how much of Irving’s story is real, and how much is, well… a hoax.