The Hoax
The Hoax is a happy surprise. Surprise because, for once, having a film's release date bumped back half a year didn't mean it's a dog. Happy because Lasse Hallstrˆm's dancing-on-eggshells comedy about a notorious literary scandal of the 1970s is bounteously entertaining, with more solid laughs and certainly slyer wit than, say, the latest Will Ferrell romp. The subject is the world-shaking con an unsuccessful writer named Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) ran on some supposedly sharp cookies in the highest echelons of Manhattan publishing.