Sharper

Beneath the affluent and sophisticated sheen, there’s a gritty intensity to Sharper, a twisty ensemble thriller about gamesmanship among the devious and unscrupulous.

Slick and clever more than groundbreaking or provocative, a first-rate cast bolsters this moderately taut crime saga with heightened emotional stakes and intriguing character dynamics.

It starts as a deceptively tender and charming romance between two book-loving millennials before dramatically shifting gears. Sandra (Briana Middleton) wanders into a quaint New York bookstore owned by Tom (Justice Smith), apparently seeking a rare hardcover for a student project.

A conversation about authors leads to a brief courtship that blossoms into a full-blown relationship, interrupted by a desperate phone call from Sandra’s brother. He’s in big-time debt to some bad people. Tom offers to loan the money from an inheritance. “I’m going to pay you back, no matter how long it takes me,” she claims before disappearing. Is she a con artist or a victim of foul play?

From there, Sandra and Tom overlap with various other enigmatic characters engaging in various degrees of deceit and duplicity as the action flashes backward and forward.

Max (Sebastian Stan) is a slick-talking gambler with ties to the high-end corporate world. Madeline (Julianne Moore) doesn’t seem too excited about her marriage to a billionaire (John Lithgow) or life in a Fifth Avenue penthouse. Who are the schemers, and who can be trusted?

The primary players tend to disappear and reappear at carefully orchestrated intervals to assume the spotlight and maximize the suspense in the stylish if convoluted feature debut of veteran series director Benjamin Caron (“The Crown”).

The nonlinear screenplay feels somewhat manipulative and disjointed, with some chapters more compelling that others. Yet it retains thematic depth while exploring the convergence of money and happiness, greed and corruption, fractured families, and the pitfalls of generational wealth.

Logic and credibility are stretched along the way, although the performers bring conviction to the material, especially relative newcomer Middleton (The Tender Bar), balancing resilience and desperation amid a maze of shifting loyalties and cloudy motives.

It’s not just the rogues and scoundrels on screen who are being played, but Sharper is cool and crafty for those moviegoers willing to surrender to the ruse.

Rated R, 116 minutes.