MovieChat Forums > Confidence (2003) Discussion > Dustin Hoffman = Genius, Ed Burns = dick...

Dustin Hoffman = Genius, Ed Burns = dickhead


Did anyone find it all amusing the scene when Dustin Hoffmans character has a bit of a chat with Ed Burns' character about Ed having "tight muscular buns" or something? And a kind of "hows that pretty boy routine workin out for ya?" kinda attitude! It sort of hit home with me that maybe good-ol' Dusty was perhaps talking to YOU the viewer, asking YOU to evaluate what kind of an actor Ed Burns is (ie, just a pretty face, yeah he cant act can he?). OR maybe I'm just over-analysing this awful piece of crap of a movie. God it was trash! Wasted time/life! But of course, thats just my opinion, I didnt like Oceans 11, couldn't really sit thru it (as a matter of fact, I dont think i did), so maybe I'm not the target audience for this kind of thing. Again, my opinion, I'm entitled to it, just like you are.

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I didn't pick up that kind of vibe from the movie. It didn't seem to me like he was trying to put Edward Burns out on a pedestal, but it just seemed to me like he was just talking to him kinda creepy (like he was trying to pick him up).
YOU DON"T LIKE THIS MOVIE????
I absolutely loved it. Number one, it's a good heist movie (you couldn't think of a story this clever), number two, it has a very talented cast (Burns was okay, but that one guy who went to pick up the money in the suitcase was a very good actor, was it Paul Giamatti? I don't know), number three it has hot women, including the beautiful Rachel Weisz (God I loved that dress she wore to the King's club!!!).
YOU DIDN'T LIKE OCEAN'S ELEVEN EITHER???????
Maybe you didn't like it because you have a short attention span. I believe that you just don't like heist movies in general. With good reason probably because maybe your brain would be in trama that you would actually be thinking during a movie. You probably thought Heat, was a three hour bore.
Please tell me you liked the Italian Job? If you didn't like that movie, I have no idea what kind of movies you like. Maybe movies like Brother Bear (sorry to the fans of Brother Bear), because it doesn't take that much thought to get through it.
Sorry I might've been to harsh in my rebuttal to your statement. I got kinda worked up, huh? I love getting mad. Can't you tell?

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I agree I thought this movie was superb!

In answer to your question, yes it was Paul Giamatti, and yes he is a very very funny man! Check out American Splendor (he is the lead) and you won't be dissapointed!

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how one can argue for this movie amazes me. I must have stopped watching it three or four times because it is so preposterous, And I like Oceans Eleven, which actually succeeds in being "fun".
Please, find a better movie to argue for.
The Italian Job? Jesus. Please. If you haven't, see the original.

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ambidexter If you watched any of the interviews on the DVD you would know that Dustin Hoffman was simply trying to embarrass Ed Burns , He said himself that he saw Ed Burns blush so he wanted to make him blush more.

This was a fantastic movie (maybe a bit predictable but still) it had all the elements working well together nothing was overdone or overrated just straight up fantastic story telling with a great cast . The only weakness was Lily she was the predictable element that allowed me to map the film out from her first scene . Rachel Weisz is an actress i've never rated simply due to the fact that she has lack of range disorder (she's always playing the same character no matter what the story or the situation is about) .

So basically yes that scene was as amusing as hell simply because Dustin was messing with Ed.

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Very well said, DreamStarr77! Rachel Weisz may undoubtedly be a beautiful face, but as far as her acting facets are concerned, they're pretty much limited (at least this movie did reveal that). And ambidexter, methinks that you don't have much of a taste for con movies, else Confidence & Oceans11 wouldn't've been disappointments for you. I recommend you see Dumb Rotten Scoundrels once, it's another con movie but in a ligher & humorous vein (bereft of violence, f-bombs et al) :-). Maybe it helps you in changing the viewpoint a bit.
It takes 42 muscles to frown.... but only 4 to pull the trigger on a decent sniper rifle.

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I like Ed burns alot. He has a very intense smoldering on screen presence and he's a great actor IMO.

But he doesn't hold a spark to Dustin Hoffman. He can act circles around anyone in this flick.

CINEMA CRAZED:
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i don't know, it had a lot of flash and there were a couple of twists that became "aha" moments, but there isn't too much to defend here. it's like a david mamet picture without any of mamet's super-sharp pulitzer penwork. okay, okay, granted, i did like watching this movie better than his last con/heist picture (named heist), but it's sort of the same film to me without the banal and predictable love interest. and what's up with people having superstitions in the crime world? birds and hair? "oh you jinxed us, so the heist is off because your wearing clothes". how f**king used! that s**t is sooooooo played out!
saying that someone who doesn't like this or ocean's 11 has no attention span is really laughable though. that may be the most moronic statement i've ever read.
yeah, pal, if something sucks as bad as ocean's 11 i guess my attention would wander too. you must have a brilliant attention span, because it sounds like you watch and enjoy a lot of garbage. sorry, but this film or the aforemention soderberg p.o.s. aren't even good enough to start acting like a superhip film buff, even in front of mtv viewers. people that are convinced that a film is good because it contains these stupid whodini "look over there. well while you weren't paying attention we did this, aren't we clever?" moments are about as played out as walking up to someone, extending your honky-assed hand and saying "gimme five".
that's not to mention the stupid cut scenes where they give you a glimspe of what you missed or what they failed to show you because they were too uninventive to use a fresh approach and instead fail to show you something and add it later so everything makes sense, but the whole thing would've fallen apart if they'd have given you the whole story to begin with.
considering the number of briliant films released in '03, defending this f**king smudge on the map is really silly. i can't believe the same guy who did glengarry glen ross directed this. that was exceptional, this is just a stupid heist movie. i'm surprised burns wasn't going in for "one last score" which it turns out to be in the end anyway. trite and useless. i could make a better film for what they spent on one day of filming. in fact, since you like heist films so much, send me 3 grand and i'll make a long one where a guy makes a sandwich and i don't show him putting meat on it and then you see him eat it and there IS meat on it and the audience will say "where'd that meat come from" and at the end i'll reveal him putting meat on it when you were looking at his hot girlfriend or something. it's totally going to blow your mind. slick hollywood films can kiss my f**king crack . . .

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I agree. This might have been a classic.

With the right writers this could have been something worth talking about for years, but in the end it was just average.

Ocean's Eleven was more surprising and that was a remake!

CINEMA CRAZED:
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there is a lot to like in the film. the cut scenes moving sideways is something i thought about doing myself and am now envious seeing how it looks so cool. i love paul giamatti (correct spelling?) so that's a good point, plus dustin hoffman, who can be forgiven for outbreak and number of other films. some of the dialogue was pretty good. the cinematography has a lot of cool points as well, but the script, my god. why does he explain, via narrative, what a dumb move he's about to make right before he tries to split the pot four ways with hoffman's henchman (who consequently rats them out)? there was no purpose for that at all considering it was in the plan to begin with? am i imagining things? it was just there to try and confuse things further, whodini at work.
BANG! look kids, there's a chicken on my head! where'd that silly chicken come from? a chicken!
another problem i have is the fake blood pouches they use in cons. that's so lame. that's one of my biggest movie peeves, people that die and then come back to life in the end and everything's okay. how many times did someone "supposedly" die in the lord of the rings trilogy? like 12, i swear to god!!! AAAARRRRGGHH! BOOOORING!!!!!
just once i wanna see the hero take one in the face 5 times like in taxi driver so we can see what it's really like when fool's try to get brave with guns.

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What?! I loved "Outbreak"! and don't forget "Wag the Dog". I loved Outbreak, that was his film despite it starring other people.

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[deleted]

I thought this movie was mediocre. Not horrible, not great, but overall forgettable. But Ed Burns is most definitely NOT a dickhead. He's a very good actor and writer but you can't compare him to Dustin Hoffman for the sole reason that Hoffman's been around longer. Hoffman has had countless roles that have allowed him to act to his full potential and that's why he's a legend. If Ed Burns gets casted in great films, he has the potential to rise to the challenge and become extremely respected.

Batman and Gandhi are the same person. WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!!

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[deleted]

"maybe I'm just over-analysing this awful piece of crap of a movie. God it was trash! Wasted time/life! But of course, thats just my opinion, I didnt like Oceans 11, couldn't really sit thru it (as a matter of fact, I dont think i did), so maybe I'm not the target audience for this kind of thing."

Seems to keep happening to you. lol

"I thought her a mere social climber, but now I see she's a mountineer." Mrs. Sedley

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your subject line states hoffman = genius and burns = dickhead. where in this post does that prove that theory. you mention acting but how does that equate to one being a genius and the other a dickhead. your the dickhead and that's not my opinion but fact.

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This movie was great. You must have been watching Ocean's Twelve.

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"I have the energy of a bear who has the energy of two bears!"

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both great

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The biggest mistake a movie can make is that you don't care about the main character, and that's what happened here. Ed Burns was completely shocking and the dialogue in this film was dreadful ("old whatsisname always said a con was like a play?" You must be kidding)- all these comments about it being good must come from a bunch of ten-year-olds whose favourite movie is the Phantom Menace.

1.) The "twist" was pointless and very very obvious- Why would the king himself come to the airport, itr was obvious Lupus was the killer from the moment Jake asked him to tell him, the chemistry between Rachel Weisz and d burns was some of the worst on screen.

2.) The characters were all a bunch of total stereotypes- completely uninteresting and unengaging- the worst being Ed Burns. Bearing in mind that Garcia, Hoffman and Giamatti are three of my favourite actors, I don't think I could have been more disappointed with this film- they limp through it but are still the best things about it

And, yes, Rachel Weisz is hot but that does not make a film good.

I liked Ocean's 11 because it's god, well made and fun- you actually like the characters, unlike those in this film.


A complete waste of time, only suitable for ten-year-olds who like to think it's a clever twist (btw it's not, it's completely trite and predictable)

In my opinion

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Good points there, "krsljanin" - especially about the stereotypical characters. Seems like this flick wasted the talents of some very good actors, Hoffman and Garcia especially.
I mean Hoffman's character, the King, was supposed to be this super-crazy-bad-thug-villain, right? Instead, he was about as frightening as the Hamburglar! C'mon! All the ticks and twitches and ADD?
Maybe it's just Hoffman, he can't play "frightening" like say...a Keitel - now THAT dude would have been a scary cat to rip off - but this stammering bumbling guy who drinks espresso (4 a time! WOW!!! he's REALLY krazykooky! and dangerously wired; he tortures people by making them watch him NOT sleep...sheesh...) has got to be the least frightening "gangsta" ever.

Then there's Andy Garcia; again, 100% NOT believable as the "slobbish" crooked-but-with-a-good-heart fed! Think of the late great M. Emmet Walsh - he would have been great. Garcia? Too good-looking and fit! Even using Morris Chestnut, as the evil bodyguard killer, makes me laugh.
A dude that kills people, in cold blood, would not have been patiently listening to Ed Burns' BS story and being "upset" at the fact that Burns ditched Rachel!!! Gimme a break. What the hell....is he a killer, or Dr Phil? Chestnut's character wouldn't have killed a spider, nevermind a human, and execution style to boot!

Maybe this movie was miscast, the more I think about it, the more it seems that way-with a different cast, maybe this flick would have worked...maybe!

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Dustin Hoffmans greatest film role was playing Lenny Bruce the comedian in Lenny, to this day it will stand up to his greatest preformances, but you must say as fans of film, that Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro are the greatest actors of this modern era, you must say

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Have fun in your little world inside your head. You really think that Dustin Hoffman was actually making a real comment on Ed Burns acting in a scripted scene in a movie???? Like the movie or not, your speculation is childish and if Hoffman was really doing that, then he would be a pretty unprofessional actor, and we all know he isn't.

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