THE HOAX **

Lasse Hallstrom isn't a director whose work I normally enjoy, ("My Life as a Dog" being the brilliant Swedish exception), but his English-language films have always been soft-centred.  "The Hoax"isn't really any better but it is hugely enjoyable. The hoax, of course, is the one perpetrated by Clifford Irving, superbly played by Richard Gere in a career-best performance, when he presented to the world the autobiography of Howard Hughes which Irving supposedly co-wrote with the reclusive billionaire. It's the kind of stuff you couldn't make up, proving that truth really is way stranger than fiction. Let's just say that if this is to be believed Irving must have had balls so big he would have needed a wheelbarrow to push them around in. So, too, would his 'researcher', (a wonderful over-the-top comic performance from Alfred Molina), who went along with the scam. Others involved include Marcia Gay Harden as Irving's wife Edith, Julie Delpy as Nina Van Pallandt and Stanley Tucci, John Carter and Hope Davis as the publishers who would have believed Irving if he had told them Jesus himself was coming to visit. Very funny and totally bizarre.