The Hoax

The Hoax is a movie based a true story about Clifford Irving, a struggling writer who decides to write a biography on Howard Hughes, the eccentric and mentally ill billionaire.

Irving is played by Richard Gere, a practicing Buddhist that kissed Indian actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS Awareness rally for Indian truck drivers, a violation of the conservative Indian culture, which resulted in the warrant for arrest of both Gere and Shetty. Unfortunately, Gere was never arrested and has since acted in several movies.

The movie also stars Hope Davis (whose first movie was Flatliners), and Alfred Molina, though it was strange not seeing him without a spinal implant and 8 long metal legs supporting him.

Gere and Molina are working together to hype up the book and garner a book deal from a large book company. Their scheme gets complicated and they must work hard to keep up 'the hoax'. What perhaps is Howard Hughes last contact with the public, he does a phone interview with 7 reports to refute Irving's claim to have met him and write his biography.

Overall, I have this movie 3 stars. It was very average. Gere plays the same character that he plays in every movie, so nothing award-winning there, but it was interesting not seeing him with grey hair or a gerbil.

Molina, however, does a good job of playing a snivelling incompetant. The interactions with Howard Hughes are interesting from a historical perspective. But again, the movie is overly average.