Kevin Spacey wears an unidentified watch

The real Ron Levin was a Beverly Hills con artist who maintained an elaborate facade of wealth while running scams that eventually got him killed. Joe Hunt, leader of the so-called Billionaire Boys Club, murdered Levin in 1984 after a deal went sideways. Levin's body was never found. James Cox's film tells the BBC story through Ansel Elgort's Hunt and Taron Egerton's Dean Karny, with Spacey playing Levin as a man who understood that in 1980s Los Angeles, looking rich was more than half the work of being rich.

The film arrived in theaters at the worst possible moment. Released in the summer of 2018, months after sexual assault allegations surfaced against Spacey, it opened to a few hundred dollars at the domestic box office, one of the most dismal theatrical runs in recent memory. A watch is visible on Spacey's wrist throughout, fitting for a character whose entire existence is a performance of success, but the specific model has not been identified. Whatever it is, it is part of Levin's costume, another prop in a life built on making other people believe the money was real.