Meet Roy (NICOLAS CAGE) and Frank (SAM ROCKWELL), a couple of pros at the small-time con. As in con artists. Grifters. Matchstick Men. Take your pick.



What Roy, a veteran of the grift, and Frank, his ambitious protege, are swindling - er, make that selling - these days are "water filtration systems," bargain-basement water filters bought by unsuspecting people who pay ten times their value in order to win bogus prizes like cars, jewelry and overseas vacations…which they never collect. These scams net the flim-flam men a few hundred here, another thousand there, which eventually adds up to a lucrative partnership.



Roy's private life, however, is not so successful. An obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe (and chain-smoker) with no personal relationships to call his own, Roy is barely hanging on to his wits, and when his idiosyncrasies begin to threaten his criminal productivity he's forced to seek the help of a psychoanalyst (BRUCE ALTMAN) just to keep him in working order.



While Roy is looking for a quick fix (i.e. pills), his therapy begets more than he bargained for: the revelation that he has a teenage daughter - a child whose existence he suspected but never dared confirm. What's more troubling, 14-year-old Angela (ALISON LOHMAN) wants to meet the father she never knew.