'Sharper' review: Julianne Moore stars in fun, twisty thriller

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Everyone scams everyone else in "Sharper," a psychological thriller that becomes disposable once all the dots are connected, but offers an entertaining ride until that point.

The ensemble includes Julianne Moore, Justice Smith, Sebastian Stan, John Lithgow and Briana Middleton.

The picture is structured by chapters, named after each character. It begins with Tom Hobbes (Smith), a lower Manhattan bookstore owner, falling for Sandra (Middleton), a Ph.D. student at NYU and then naively agreeing to help her out of a difficult financial spot.

For the purpose of maintaining the sanctity of the plot twists that the movie depends upon, the less said about the characters played by Moore, Lithgow and Stan, the better.

"Sharper" marks the feature filmmaking debut of Benjamin Caron, who has previously helmed episodes of "The Crown" and "Andor," among others.

MY SAY There's something refreshing about encountering a movie that aspires to nothing beyond the fundamentals: a thriller with loved ones betrayed, the perfect cons perfected, characters manipulating other characters until there's nothing and no one left to manipulate.

The movie relies on stimulating the audience with the dopamine hits of sharp plot turns rather than pursuing any other part of the brain.

Made with the sort of glossy aesthetic once ubiquitous in, say, '90s thrillers starring Michael Douglas (everything from "Basic Instinct" to "A Perfect Murder"), the nonlinear plot convulsions get underpinned with an abundance of architectural eye candy.

"Sharper" is set in the world of glamorous New York City high-rises that sport boardrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, fancy hotel bars and the sort of Manhattan apartments only the wealthiest of the wealthy could dream of affording. There's enough mood lighting, complete with expressive shadows set against darkened corridors, to fill a whole other movie.

It looks great and has style to spare: Caron shows himself to be adept at staging a sleek set-piece.

The actors ably navigate the different beats and quick shifts in their characters. Moore infrequently gets the chance to go bad in the movies and seems to relish the chance to play a figure of questionable moral character. Stan, as the key figure orchestrating everything that happens in the story, radiates cool with a side of deep insecurity.

The stars invest as much as they can toward providing the characters with some degree of depth or complexity, but there are limits to how far anyone can go in that direction. This is a genre exercise, above all, and so there's no interest in a deep and probing journey into the subconscious impulses that compel these people to play these games.

That fundamental shallowness limits the re-watch value of "Sharper." There are no layers to unpack. Everything there is to see has been placed right out there, in front of the audience, to be seen the first time around. In some respects, there's less than meets the eye. 

But the journey toward that revelation is entertaining enough to make it worthwhile nonetheless.

BOTTOM LINE: A fun thriller with lots of twists.