Con Man

Con Man is a 2018 American crime drama film directed by Bruce Caulk and starring James Caan, Ving Rhames, Justin Baldoni, Elisabeth Röhm, Mark Hamill, Talia Shire and Armand Assante. It is based on the real-life story of Barry Minkow, who also appears in the film. Plot In 1982, 16-year-old Barry Minkow is an ambitious high school student in Reseda, working at a gym and a carpet-cleaning business. He obtains steroids from a gym member named Victor, who gives him a loan to open his own carpet-cleaning business, “ZZZZ Best”. As a teenage entrepreneur, Barry revels in the attention from his classmates and the local news, until his bank realizes he is a minor and cancels his accounts. Desperate to stay in business, he steals money orders to pay his debt to Victor, and convinces another bank to give him an account. After expenses like a new sports car and expanding the still-struggling company, Barry resorts to check kiting, forging credit card statements, and stages an office break-in, paying a crooked insurance adjuster to ensure a fraudulent claims payout. His overinflated success goes to his head, alienating him from his friend and employee Mike. In 1984, Barry turns 18 and graduates high school, and his uncle introduces him to lucrative insurance contracts for restoring water damage. He puts Barry in touch with Jack Saxon, an organized crime-connected businessman who offers to finance ZZZZ Best in exchange for splitting the profits. Confronted by his bank over the credit card fraud, Barry and his adjuster form a fake appraisal company to verify ZZZZ Best’s fraudulent restoration contracts; combined with Saxon’s money, this allows Barry to settle with the bank, and his company continues to grow. Approached by FBI Agent Gamble, Barry declines to testify against Saxon. Barry and his adjuster falsify tens of thousands of documents to inflate the company’s value, misrepresenting that they handle millions of dollars in non-existent restorations; in Sacramento, Barry stages a walkthrough for investors of a restoration site where ZZZZ Best never worked.