Let's Get Rich Review: Jaspers Lai’s Scam Caper Is Dull, Tension-Free But Is Mercifully Short

Let's Get Rich (PG13)

Starring Janel Tsai, Leon Jay Williams, Shane Pow, Chien Chang, Sam Lin

Directed by Jaspers Lai

Let's Get Rich should be re-titled Let's Get Something.

Anything.

Enough conman movies have come onto our screens to fill an instruction manual about, well, how to make a snazzy conman movie.

But this straightforward, tension-less local comedy-drama — shot in Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia — about a can-do, close-knit family of con artists (dad, daughter, son) actually looks like a manual itself.

Without being much about anything else.

Narrated by its lively main fraudster, Eva (Taiwanese actress Janel Tsai from TV's The Fierce Wife), it breaks itself into orderly how-to phases — the Plant, Set-Up, Entrance, Catch, etc — to explain the long con. But that's about it.

You keep waiting for the tale to take off in a typically twist-and-turn, hitch-and-glitch jaunty caper way that would keep us engaged in an inventive, nervous-sweat manner. Keep waiting.

Okay, the ending does have a flashback twist. Would be an actual crime if it doesn't. But this bit — the most interesting segment in the movie — is rushed through almost like an add-on.

Apparently six writers, including Malaysian-born director Jaspers Lai (Number 1, What! The Heist), are involved here. Er, none of them saw Ocean's Eleven or even Thailand's The Con-Heartist for inspiration or perspiration?

One good thing though. This pic, also Lai's directorial debut, clocks in at a merciful 78 minutes. Which makes its early declaration about fooling gullible folks — “The opening is set, enter the idiot” — more palatable. Guess “idiot” includes the audience too.

Eva's con-family teams up with another conman they’ve just met, Wang Junming (Leon Jay Williams), a slick, smooth, iffy dude. They plot to steal millions from a super-rich tech punk, Zheng Huairen (Shane Pow), by deceiving the latter's wife to get close enough to infiltrate his GCB (Good-Class Bungalow) and dupe him with an instant bogus office in Singapore’s CBD.

You know, WeCheat instead of WeWork.

How about this? This lacklustre flick actually comes to life when Abigail Chay pops up with her face-kiss-camera shtick as bar girl Lotus from MBS — that's My Bombay Shop — corralling her nightclub sisters to fill up the WeCheat office in an emergency. Pretending to be legit staff working late into the night to trick Zheng who arrives unexpectedly. “Some of our customers refuse to go home,” she coos comically.

The cocky mark deserves the big hoax because he's supposedly a notorious unidentified mastermind who re-surfaces from time to time to major-scam. This time, he's poised to cheat even more spectacularly with a fake “revolutionary” computer chip labelled Big Bang,

So our newly-aligned Robin Hoods feel justified in bringing him down. Because the loot is huge. Plus it's payback for Junming since his dad, an old friend of Eva's own father, Uncle Jia (Chien Chang), languishes bedridden in a pitiable care home, being a victim of heartless bastard Zheng too.

Just an aside. It's kinda fun and familiar to see Singaporean sons, Williams and Pow, scheme in occasional English about getting rich in get-rich-scheme Singapore. Someone should put these two together in an actual deal about cyber-heisting. Instead of just dropping terms like NFT, J-notes and virtual wallet here as empty stones. I mean, even Aaron Kwok put in more tech-crap effort in Cyber Heist.

A pity because Let's Get Rich with its likeable con-family —  Tsai and Chien are a promising combo —  could've had contemporary No More Bets online-scam relevance. Instead of wallowing in some kind of TV-ish Crazy Rich Asians drama.

Right at the start, as father, daughter and son deftly scam a greedy wealthy fella who vows revenge, with a hospital bed set-up hidden just next to him, we think we're heading for an offbeat, clever Taiwanese-style genre treat ala the nutty-ghostly Dead Talents Society.

Nope. Doesn't happen. The caper simply tapers off.

Nobody's getting conned here. (1.5/5 stars) out in cinemas

Photo: mm2 Entertainment