PARK CITY "Confidence," a movie about grifters and their confidence games, pulls off the most important con of all: It gets you more interested in its wayward and volatile characters than in the con itself. Doug Jung supplies a slick and clever screenplay that maps out all the moves like a chess master teaching a class, while veteran director James Foley casts the movie oh so sweetly.

There's Ed Burns, a driven, type-A personality who runs the sting; Rachel Weisz as the impossibly good-looking pickpocket hoping to graduate into big-time crime; and Dustin Hoffman provoking gasps and giggles as a sleazy, unctuous, ruthless crime boss.

What this Hollywood dude is doing here at Sundance, strutting around town with low-budget indies, is anybody's guess. In any event, Lions Gate should get plenty of boxoffice mileage out of this movie in theaters far removed from the art house arena. The confident acting certainly opens up "Confidence" for easy enjoyment whether one is one step ahead or two steps behind its double- and triple-cross plot.

Actually, this is not the most elaborate con game ever put on film. Most viewers probably will spot the ringer  the one person who may be telling a little white lie about his or her motivation.

Then again, it's a movie about liars, cheats and thieves, which is why everyone loves this genre. The story is told in flashback as a henchman (Morris Chestnut) holds a gun to Jake's (Burns) head and demands to know, "Where's the money?"

Jake then relates the con of the past six weeks. It begins when Jake and his grifter gang Gordo (Paul Giamatti), Miles (Brian Van Holt), Big Al (Louis Lombardi) and two corrupt undercover cops, Lloyd (Donal Logue) and Omar (Luis Guzman) successfully pull off a fast and easy sting operation in Los Angeles that turns around and bites them.

The victim, Lionel (Leland Orser), was a collector for a gangster known simply as "the King" (Hoffman). When Lionel and Big Al wind up dead, Jake knows he must set things right with the King.

His solution is not to return the money, but rather to pull off an even bigger con for the King. Amused and intrigued, the gangster selects as the mark an old nemesis, a mob-connected banker (Robert Forster).

The con involves a corporate loan, an offshore bank account and money smuggled back into the United States. Two more join the operation: Lily (Weisz), whose criminal style Jake admires almost as much as her sexual aura, and Lupus (Franky G), a King associate who looks after his boss' interests.

Things go pretty smoothly until the appearance of FBI agent Gunther Butan (Andy Garcia), who after a long chase is determined to put an end to Jake's career.

Grifter movies can actually be static affairs as people talk and scheme but little physical action occurs. Realizing this, Foley and DP Juan Ruiz-Anchia keep the expressive camera moving while screen wipes and Stuart Levy's rhythmic editing give the story a sensation of forward momentum.

Jung's script has characters pop up and slot into the action shorn of psychology or backstories. Jung shows no interest in who anybody really is. Let's just say they all had bad childhoods.

Hoffman takes everyone's idea of the most prissy, finicky, demanding boss and turns him into a sinister baddie. His accountant's glasses and fastidiousness do not even begin to mask the moral monster he is.

Burns' Jake is the King's equal in brashness. He is a seducer, smoothly bending people to his will, especially those most resistant.

Weisz's Lily has used her allure and wiles to get what she wants so long and so well that she is shocked to find someone working her better than she could herself.

This gives the actress a chance to merge vamp with victim and innocence with deceit. The rest of the cast follows suit, with Garcia -- almost unrecognizable as the grizzled and rumpled fed  leading the way.