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SHARPER

The best heist movies, from

The Sting to The Usual

Suspects, keep the audience guessing right to the end. New Apple TV+ film Sharper is a worthy addition to the genre – a stylish New York thriller that delivers gobsmacking surprises.

Oscar-winner Julianne Moore stars asseductive single mum Madeline, who’s set her sights on getting billionaire Richard Hobbes’s (John Lithgow, right, with Moore) fortune. At the same time, her disgraced son Max (Pam & Tommy’s Sebastian Stan) is hatching some dubious moneymaking schemes of his own.

Moore, 62, came on board because she was ‘astonished’ by the script. ‘It was so wild and had such great characters,’ she says. ‘What’s been missing when I look for material is that kind of character work where the drama is what these people are doing and saying to each other. I think Sharper is something people will really want to watch.’

Sharper keeps viewers on their toes by jumping between timelines, with chapters devoted to characters’ stories. It opens on a sweet love story between a bookshop worker and PHD student, whose paths soon cross those of the mercurial Max, who dreams up ever-moreaudacious plans to fleece strangers. Uptown, Madeline is settling in to a life of luxury with Richard, whose story becomes intertwined with those of the others. In the end, not everyone is quite who they seem.

In that way, says Stan, Sharper mirrors real life. ‘Everyone’s an actor at the end of the day, but certain people are using that to gain an advantage, and that’s what this movie is about,’ he says.

Stan, 40, who plays Bucky Barnes/winter Soldier in the Marvel superhero movies, found it a challenge to pin down his own character. He says, ‘Max essentially is many different personalities in the film. It was a guessing game for me reading the script trying to identify which was the real Max rather than a character he was putting forward.’

Sharper celebrates Manhattan in all its glory, with scenes filmed in trendy Soho and the swanky Upper East Side. Moore says it was vital to film Sharper in the Big Apple due to its renown as a place where dreams are made. In fact, when director Benjamin Caron suggested shooting in London or Berlin, she shut him down.

‘I said, “No, this is a New York story!”’ recalls Moore. ‘I think

New York, and Manhattan in particular, is a place where everything is allowed.’

Certainly, the characters of Sharper have little regard for rules, which is what makes the movie such a thrill ride. ‘It has a real edge,’ says Stan. ‘It doesn’t shy away from showing how cunning people can be in their self-interest.’

Everyone is an actor at the end of the day, but certain people are using that to gain an advantage, and that’s what this movie is about