I saw THE STING for the first time as a young teenager, when it aired on PBS during a pledge drive. Even despite the endless commercial interruptions suggesting I pledge my allowance money in exchange for Scott Joplin albums and piles of tote bags, I was mesmerized by this movie; only about twenty years old at the time, but, with its Depression setting, felt like a relic from a forgotten age.

Essentially, THE STING is a sequel. Four years earlier, stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill had teamed for the first time in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, an undeniably great end-of-the-western comedy. Though THE STING was well-liked and a huge box office hit, it is far more fashionable today to prefer BUTCH CASSIDY, since its quipping heroes and dark ending bear have far more in common with cool contemporary cinema than the romantic and unapologetic ally upbeat STING.

Redford plays Johnny Hooker, a low-rent grifter whose partner is killed when they accidentally steal from rackets boss Doyle Lonnegan (an intensely menacing Robert Shaw). Seeking revenge, he finds Newman's Henry Gondorff, and convinces him to help play Lonnegan for "The Big Con."

Redford's good but Newman is better, or at least gets all the best moments (His first line: "Glad to meet you kid, you're a real horse's ass"). Setting the con in motion requires Gondorff infiltrate Lonnegan's card game and out-cheat him. He spikes his breath with gin (because marks can't tell if you cut it) and plows into the high-class, high-stakes game with "Sorry I'm late. I was taking a crap." The poker scene in THE STING, stylistically simple as it is, is one of my favorites, because Newman’s mischievous grin never fails to make me smile.

THE STING was only the second film I ever reviewed in this column nearly five years ago. The writing was terrible (some may say it still is) by even my infantile prose couldn't smother my enthusiasm for the film, an enthusiasm that remains just as strong five years later. Back then, there was something unquantifiable about the film, a charm that I couldn't put my finger on. "There's something magical about this movie," I wrote, straining to understand exactly what about this middlebrow concoction involving Depression-era grifters charmed me so completely. Five years later I'm still struggling with it.