DVD Fake

Attention-grabbing opener as the camera pans a room revealing the principal actors of "Fake". A voice-over self-describes the artist (Gabriel Mann) who claims to have paintings hanging in museums all over the world and who has made "millions of dollars doing it but no one knows" his name.

Flash-back 21 years earlier. A mother drags a young boy through a museum/art gallery. They stop and the mother shows the boy the painting that ruined his father's life. She curses the painting and warns the boy not to waste his life on such foolishness. But as the camera cuts to the boy, it is obvious from the look in his eyes that he, like his father, has fallen under its spell.

As the opening credits play; the artist is carefully and deliberately applying loving strokes to his canvas. When he has finished, he stares at it mesmerized until his girlfriend (Jill Flint) interrupts his preoccupation to tell him she's leaving for work. At her office, we learn she is an art authenticator.

After being passed over at a showing and suffering a series of harsh rejections, Daniel succumbs to the temptation of creating a fake. He passes his painting off with particular delight onto a snooty dealer (Blanche Baker) who had earlier called him a "talentless little sh*t". From here, the story takes us off into the world of art galleries; collectors and dealers who buy and sell paintings; forgeries; authenticators; FBI investigators and the artists who create them.

The story offers a fascinating look at the art world played against the background of a basic love story between a struggling young artist willing to compromise his art for recognition and the loyal girlfriend torn between her love for him and her job. However, the script is often-times done in by the over-the-top performances of Robert Loggia's mob-boss character who screams his lines; his minion son (Robert Clohessy) and the son's corrupt friend (David Thornton) who act out stereotypical roles of gangster-wannabe and childhood screw-up buddy. Fisher Steven, as the dogged-FBI forger-agent, in pursuit of them, does his best in a minor role and gives a welcomed counterbalance performance.

"Fake" would be a most satisfactory watch if there had been a more definitive ending. After investing an hour and forty-five minutes on the movie, the audience is left in a precarious darkness as to the fate of the artist and his girlfriend; as well as that of those who most profited from his fakes.