Plot Summary (The Sting) The Sting
The Set-Up: a small-time grifter steals from the wrong man
In September 1936, small-time con artist Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and his partner Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) pull a successful street hustle in Joliet, Illinois, swindling $11,000 from a numbers runner. What they don't know is that the money belongs to Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), a powerful New York racketeer who operates out of a private railcar on the 20th Century Limited. Hooker blows his share of the take gambling, while Luther — older and wiser — announces his retirement and tells Hooker to look up an old associate in Chicago named Henry Gondorff if he ever wants to learn the big con.
Lonnegan's retribution is swift. He has Luther murdered and puts out a hit on Hooker. Corrupt Joliet police lieutenant William Snyder (Charles Durning) also comes after Hooker, shaking him down for a cut of the take. Hooker flees to Chicago with nothing.
The Hook: Gondorff comes out of hiding to run one last con
Hooker finds Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) drunk and hiding out in a brothel run by Billie (Eileen Brennan), on the run from the FBI. Hooker convinces the reluctant Gondorff that Luther's death demands revenge — not the violent kind, but the kind that hurts a man like Lonnegan where it counts: his wallet and his pride. Gondorff agrees to run a "big con" — an elaborate long-form swindle requiring a crew, a storefront, and Lonnegan's own greed as the engine.
Gondorff assembles a team of grifters, including Kid Twist (Harold Gould), J.J. Singleton (Ray Walston), Erie Kid (Jack Kehoe), and others. They rent an empty basement and transform it, in a matter of days, into a convincing off-track betting parlor they call "Shaw's."
The Tale: a rigged poker game puts the hook in Lonnegan's mouth
Aboard the 20th Century Limited, Gondorff — posing as a boorish Chicago bookie named "Shaw" — sits down at Lonnegan's private poker table. Lonnegan cheats as a matter of course. Gondorff cheats better, using skill and misdirection to beat Lonnegan at his own rigged game and win $15,000. The humiliation is the point: Gondorff needs Lonnegan furious enough to want revenge, because a man seeking revenge stops thinking clearly.
Hooker, playing Gondorff's disgruntled underling "Kelly," approaches Lonnegan separately. He claims he has a contact at Western Union named Les Harmon (actually Kid Twist) who can feed them horse-race results before the betting wire transmits them. If Lonnegan bankrolls the operation, "Kelly" will steer the bets through Shaw's parlor and they can take Gondorff for everything he has. Lonnegan, still burning from the poker game, bites.
The Wire: the con tightens while threats close in from every side
The wire con unfolds in stages. Kid Twist, posing as "Les Harmon," feeds Lonnegan a series of winning tips to build his confidence. Each bet is placed at the fake parlor, and each one pays off. Lonnegan's greed grows. The crew is building toward a single massive bet that will be the score.
But Hooker is under pressure from multiple directions. FBI agent Polk (Dana Elcar) catches him and forces him to betray Gondorff — agree to set him up for arrest or go to prison. Lieutenant Snyder tracks Hooker to Chicago and threatens him again. And Lonnegan, suspicious by nature, has sent his enforcer Salino to shadow Hooker and verify his story. One of Lonnegan's men nearly kills Hooker in a drive-by.
Hooker finds companionship with a waitress named Loretta (Dimitra Arliss), not realizing she may be more than she seems.
The Shut-Out: Lonnegan bets everything and appears to lose it all
The final play arrives. Kid Twist gives Lonnegan the tip: bet on a horse named Lucky Dan at Shaw's parlor, and bet big. Lonnegan places $500,000 — cash he brought in a briefcase. But when "Harmon" arrives at the parlor and hears what Lonnegan has done, he's horrified. He told Lonnegan the horse would "place" — finish second — not win. Lonnegan bet it to win.
Before Lonnegan can demand his money back, Polk and a squad of FBI agents storm the parlor. Gondorff confronts "Kelly" (Hooker) for being a rat, and Polk shoots Gondorff. Hooker turns, and another agent shoots him too. Both men lie on the floor in spreading pools of blood. Polk hustles Lonnegan out of the parlor before he can be implicated in an illegal gambling operation, and Lonnegan — panicked, confused, and desperate to avoid federal charges — leaves without his money.
The Sting: the dead men stand up
After Lonnegan and Snyder are gone, Gondorff and Hooker get up. The blood was fake. The bullets were fake. Polk was fake — he's actually Hickey, a con man who played the FBI agent as part of the swindle. The entire FBI raid was a performance, layered on top of the wire con, designed to get Lonnegan out of the parlor before he could reclaim his bet or realize the parlor itself was a set.
The crew packs up and disappears. Gondorff offers Hooker his cut of the take. Hooker declines — the money was never the point. They walk out together into the street.