The Sting Friendship Quotes

You can tell a lot about people in this movie by how they use the word "friend." Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker, for example, tend to use the word when they're actually feeling friendly with people. But villains like Snyder and Lonnegan tend to use this word when they're actually trying to intimidate someone. So yeah, those aren't the guys you want to be friends with.

In the opening scene of the movie, Mottolla thinks he's doing a great job of conning Luther by taking his money and promising to take it to the mob. But his friendship is totally a lie and he plans on selling Luther out entirely. So in a sense, the dude deserves to get conned the way he does by Johnny and Luther. As for the knife he ends up getting in his eye from Lonnegan, we're going to go ahead and say that's a bit excessive.

Hooker feels a close friendship with Luther because, in his words, Luther is the guy who's responsible for getting him into a higher class of grifting. But Johnny isn't here to talk about Luther's skills. He's here to tell us why he feels so loyal to his old friend. And that's why he needs to take down Lonnegan to avenge Luther's death in the only way he knows how—by conning.