Confidence (2003)

Andy Garcia loved working on CONFIDENCE. He enjoyed collaborating with an ensemble "A-List" cast. He felt a connection to the intricate, richly drawn characters and witty dialogue of Doug Jung’s screenplay. He felt director James Foley’s unbridled enthusiasm for the project and the sense of commitment he brought to the set allowed for the cast to feel inspired. Just don’t ask him to summarize the movie. He won’t share any of CONFIDENCE’s many plot details or any substantial information about his character. "He introduces himself as a special agent," Garcia says of Gunther Butan. "And that's really as far as I can go with it, because everything else would be spoiling the natural discoveries of the material. And that would be unfair to the viewer."

Garcia isn’t alone in his secrecy. The entire cast and crew are as tight-lipped and guarded as, appropriately enough, a group of con artists. "You want to talk about it but you don't want to give away the story and ruin the ending for the audience," Brian Van Holt, who plays Miles, adds. "But there are a lot of layers that are peeled throughout the whole story. Something new hits you every time you turn a different corner."

Luis Guzman, who plays Manzano, chooses to explain the content of CONFIDENCE by relaying its most basic thematic elements: "I guess the plot line comes down to this: you can't really trust anybody. Everybody's not who they say they are. And if they say that they can help you, most likely they can hurt you."

Producer Marc Butan first read Doug Jung’s detailed screenplay during his days as an independent producer. Though his initial reaction to the material was overwhelmingly positive, it took more than one read for Butan to devote himself to CONFIDENCE. Like the esteemed members of the cast, Butan saw enormous dramatic potential in the deliciously convoluted story’s innumerable twists. "I read the whole script and I thought, ‘It can't all fit together, can it?’" Butan remembers. "And then I went through it with a pen and wrote down all the things that happened in order to make sure it all played back and forth. It all rang true. This movie will hold up for examination."

Butan held on to the script when he began working as an executive at Lions Gate. Everyone at the Indie film company matched his enthusiasm for the project and quickly began a search for the best director to bring CONFIDENCE to the screen. Butan, along with fellow Lions Gate Films executives and producers Michael Burns and Michael Paseornek, poured through an extensive list of potential directors, always aware that they needed someone who had worked with a diverse group of seasoned male actors. "His name grabbed my attention," Burns says of James Foley. "When you look at "Glengarry Glen Ross," he did such a good job with a cast of fantastic actors."

Foley was thrilled with the opportunity to make CONFIDENCE. He was impressed by the intelligence of Jung’s screenplay and the depth of its conflicted, double-crossing characters. "I'm not interested just in heist movies, of people planning and of elaborate plot intricacies. That on its own does not appeal to me," he explains. "But if it can be combined with characters that are complicated and have a certain emotional reality to them, and if the plot revelations strengthen the characters ‘aliveness,’ then all the better."

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