Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) is a down-on-his-luck author whose potential best-seller sure-thing book gets turned down for publication - after Clifford has spent a good chunk of his expected windfall. He needs something. He needs something spectacular, something amazing... but he doesn't know what; what he does know is he needs it fast. If he doesn't come up with an idea that can secure a large advance for him and get a publisher's attention, he's going to be in financial ruin. The whole time he's trying to come up with a good idea for a book, he is inundated with Howard Hughes... from news stories to radio clips... he's even thrown out of a hotel (along with all of the other guests) because Howard Hughes decides he wants to stay in the hotel and he doesn't want other guests there.
Clifford Irving realizes that what he needs to do is write Howard Hughes' autobiography. That would get everyone's attention. That would be a best seller, without compare. That would be... pretty much impossible, as Howard Hughes refuses to talk to the press and is never even seen by the public. That little detail, however, is not enough to keep Irving from writing the book.
In order to get enough information on Howard Hughes to be able to fabricate a believable "autobiography" on Hughes, Irving enlists the assistance of a researcher, author and friend, Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina) to help him gather data, through all means legal... and illegal. Before it's all over, Irving manages to also get his wife, Edith Irving (Marcia Gay Harden) involved in the deceit and fraud.
While the story of Irving's hoax is interesting in and of itself, it is interesting to watch the character development as The Hoax unfolds. Clifford Irving starts out as a desperate writer, but he shows, at first, an uncanny empathy for Howard Hughes and later he not only uses some of the cutthroat business practices that he's divined from Howard Hughes, but also seems to follow Hughes' foray into insanity, possibly due to the pressure of convincing the world that his fake autobiography is genuine. As the movie progresses, it seems that Clifford Irving moves out of the world of reality and into his fiction that he keeps propping up with new, fantastic lies. He can't make others believe it, unless he, himself, believes it, and in doing so, he disassociates himself from reality to the point that not even he's sure what's real and what's fiction at certain points.
The really interesting side of the story, at least from a political angle, is that The Hoax intimates that the reason that Richard Nixon's people spied on the Watergate was to see if the Democrats had managed to get hold of the alleged autobiography that Clifford Irving was writing, as it had damning information about contributions that indicated that Nixon might be in Howard Hughes' pocket. That elevates this con from a fraudulent manuscript to a book that changed the course of American history, making for a more tense caper than one would otherwise expect.
The part that brings it all back into perspective is when you watch the special features that come on the DVD release of The Hoax. This is especially true of the interview with Mike Wallace concerning his interview with the real Clifford Irving. This really hits home that this is very much based on the outlandish actions of a very real person.
I found The Hoax to be very entertaining and fascinating in a way that, I think, only true stories can inspire. If you like capers and if you like true stories, than you'll love The Hoax.
