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Around a decade ago, several aspiring actors, filmmakers, and media industry professionals began getting phone calls out of the blue from the topmost female executives of Hollywood. These people were offered high-paying gigs, an opportunity to work with giants, and a direct line to those who pull the strings. They were ultimately lured to Indonesia, where they were kept on the hook for days, sometimes weeks — in one case, longer — while they bled cash and worked tirelessly to prove themselves. Some of them caught on sooner than others, but in the end, they were all victims of the Hollywood Con Queen — a global scam artist whose jaw-dropping escapades have been recounted in a new three-part true-crime series on Apple TV+.
The show hails from Chris Smith, who, after breaking out decades ago with the indie gem American Movie, has become something of a prolific streaming age hitmaker. He has to his name the viral sensations Tiger King and Fyre, although his greatest accomplishment might be successfully completing a shoot with Nana Patekar. In Hollywood Con Queen, he sets himself the challenge of managing another volatile personality. While the con artist’s identity is now in the public domain, it would make sense to not look it up before watching this show, purely because Smith has structured like an investigative thriller.
Episode one focusses on the victims. Not only were these unsuspecting men and women taken for a ride and robbed blind, in some cases, the scam also took a sexual turn. These were talented young people whose biggest crime was dreaming big. They had no connections in the entertainment industry, and so, they latched on to the first opportunity that they got. But they were meticulously groomed and manipulated by a psychopath who exploited their vulnerabilities, and hearing them recount their experiences is harrowing. The scammer would modulate their voice and accent to sound like bigwigs such as Donna Langley from Universal; Amy Pascal, who was then at Sony; and LucasFilms’ Kathleen Kennedy. One young filmmaker was sent to Indonesia three times in a matter of weeks, and was robbed of over $50,000 before his concerned father took measures to knock some sense into him.
But it was only after Pascal hired a private investigation firm that major headway was made in the case. The detective in charge, Nicole Kotsianas, is featured prominently in the show, along with the Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Johnson, who first broke the story. Episode two takes us to the United Kingdom at the height of the pandemic, where Johnson tries to confront the scammer head-on after doing a bit of online sleuthing himself and tracking their location. It’s a thrilling hour of TV, mainly because you have no idea how the meeting will go. The scammer has established himself to be hyper-prepared, potentially dangerous, and most worryingly, truly talented at the art of the con. As Johnson walks up to them on a rainy Manchester afternoon, you get the sense that anything could happen.
But Hollywood Con Queen struggles in episode three, as it tries to psychologically profile the scammer after effectively cornering them. Noble as the show’s attempts to empathise with them might seem — both Smith and Johnson make an honest effort to understand the scammer’s side of the story — this sudden bout of introspection can’t help but feel anticlimactic after two episodes of globe-trotting adventure. Johnson spends hours on the phone with the scammer, who tries all their tricks on him as well. These scenes are reminiscent of the unsettling sequences in the recent documentary While We Watched, in which the journalist Ravish Kumar answers scores of threatening phone calls on camera, or the many off-putting sequences in David Farrier’s Mister Organ, in which the filmmaker is essentially taken hostage by his litigious subject and made to listen to his rants.
In the final chapter of Hollywood Con Queen, we learn about the scammer’s early life and their past misdemeanors, some of which are of Ma Anand Sheela magnitude. Briefly, we’re told, the scammer tried to go legit, embarking on a career as a food influencer. And it was partially this quest for fame, this obsession with glamour, that alerted folks like Nicole and Scott Johnson to their activities. Hollywood Con Queen is about as exciting as a summer blockbuster, but at its core, it’s a tragedy not unlike those that unfold in the shadows of tinseltown.
Hollywood Con Queen
Director – Chris Smith
Rating – 4/5
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