Five scammer movies you should stream this week

Melissa McCarthy has ditched comedy for drama, with her excellent forgery drama Can You Ever Forgive Me? hitting cinemas today. Here are five more flicks to stream where scams are to the fore.

Melissa McCarthy has ditched comedy for drama, with her excellent forgery drama Can You Ever Forgive Me? hitting cinemas today.

Here are five more flicks to stream where scams are to the fore.

REVIEW: MORTAL ENGINES BLOCKBUSTER FAILS TO FIRE

SEVEN MOVIES YOU SHOULD STREAM THIS WEEKEND

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as master fraudster Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If you Can.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)

Netflix, Amazon

****

The true story of master fraudster Frank Abagnale, the FBI’s Most Wanted Man of the 1960s. Starting in his teens, Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) became a pilot without attending flight school, practised law without a law degree, ran a medical surgery, and rubberised the bounciest cheques in banking history. Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-starring Tom Hanks.

Margot Robbie and Will Smith in Focus.

FOCUS (2015)

Foxtel Now, Netflix

***

Will Smith stars as a too-cool-for-school conman who knows every trick in the book when it comes to emptying wallets. Margot Robbie plays a small-time scammer who wants to learn the light-fingered game from the best. Robbie walks away with scene after scene in the movie, simply by being alive in the moment and alert to all possibilities.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is a superb crime thriller.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (2008)

SBS On Demand

****

A superb, majestically morose crime thriller. Brothers Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) are both clean out of cash, and have some dirty work to do to make up the shortfall.

When the failsafe plan becomes a safe bet to fail, the family meltdown it triggers is a haunting, horrible sight. A testing experience from veteran director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon).

Comedic drama war Dogs is based on true events.

WAR DOGS (2016)

Google, iTunes

***½

Thanks to a strange loophole in US law, regular suburban guys Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and David Packouz (Miles Teller) became kingpins in the global weapons trade. Under the clever direction of Todd Phillips (The Hangover), this is an equally galling and amusing (true) story of what can happen when big money falls into the hands of those with no conscience.

Jack Black also stars as a real-life fraudster in The Polka King.

THE POLKA KING (2017)

Netflix

***½

Jack Black excels in this completely bonkers true story of Jan Lewan, an American polka music legend who also had an unfortunate tendency to mismanage his finances to increasingly worrying degrees.

As is often the case, Lewan later took it upon himself to mismanage (and make disappear) the money of others, with get-rich-quick schemes not looked upon all that kindly by the authorities.

MORE LEIGH PAATSCH