With today being April First, aka April Fools Day, we were inspired with this week’s challenge of watching a movie about pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. Whether that’s playing a harmless prank, or conning them out of money.
You could watch a movie with a whole plot around this subject, a few of which we’ll look at now, or a movie which simply contains a prank between characters. Because you’ll never know whether a movie contains a simple prank without having seen it, let us know, without spoilers, your favourite movies that feature a simple prank. Your suggestions may just help someone choose what to watch this week.
To start with, you could watch a reality movie, in which the actors are playing a prank on the public for your entrainment such as the Jackass movie "Bad Grandpa", or "Impractical Jokers" movie. In fact, the Jackass movies themselves have the cast playing pranks on each other.
Movies about pranks include "Big Fat Liar", in which a student performs a series of pranks on a hollywood producer who stole his school essay. "Jawbreaker" is a blank comedy about a prank that leads to the accidental death of a high school girl - and sticking along the same lines, there are an abundance of horror movies about pranks that have gone wrong like "Prom Night"
Looking at Con artist movies: There's the excellent "The Sting", set in the 1930’s about a grifter, who asks for help of a retired grifter to get revenge for a murdered friend. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" with Michael Caine and Steve Martin, in a comedy is about two competing con men living on the French Riviera. "Oceans Eleven", Steven Soderbergh’s stylish reimaging of the original 60’s heist movie. "The Brothers Bloom", is about two con artist brothers, played by Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, who decide to take on one last job before retiring. Finally "American Hustle", inspired by the FBI ABSCAM operation of the late 1970s and early 1980s