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The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Sting can be found here.
The Sting is based on a 1973 screenplay by American movie director David S. Ward who was inspired by some real-life con games perpetrated by the brothers Fred and Charley Gondorf and documented by David Maurer in his book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man.
Erie [Jack Kehoe] was the one who "mugged" Luther [Robert Earl Jones] and gave Hooker [Robert Redford] a reason to decline Luther's invitation to carry his money to the fake drop-off location. Establishing the "mugging" also gave Matolla [James Sloyan] the chance to be a hero and provide Luther with a reason to trust him with his money and then to swindle it from him in the "switch" inside the hankies. Erie's role may not have been as great as Hooker's or Luther's but it was critical to the overall con.
The Five Points district in New York City was a low income area, usually inhabited by the latest poor immigrants. Depending on the year, those immigrants could have been Irish, Italian or even Jewish. Another film that deals with Irish immigrants in Five Points is Gangs of New York (2002).
If movies about con jobs is what you are after, check out Confidence (2003), in which a grifter attempts to pull the biggest con of his life against a banker with ties to the mob. In House of Games (1987), a psychiatrist finds herself involved in running cons during poker games. In Miller's Crossing (1990), two crime factions battle for control of the city while an intelligent anti-hero gets caught in between trying to restore order. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), while more of a comedy, pits two cons against each other when they decide that a small town on the French Mediterranean coast isn't big enough for the two of them.
This is an indicator of two aspects of Lonegan's character. First, that he could order the murder of someone who he is so disassociated from that he doesn't even know what they look like. Secondly, that Lonegan is such a "big fish" that he doesn't know about the day to day operations conducted by, and carnage inflicted by, his organization.
Keep in mind that this is in the midst of the Great Depression. A half million dollars is a lot of money even now. Back then it would have been a great fortune, more than enough to cover the renting of furniture and the time of the couple dozen extras needed to pull of the con and still leaving enough left over for the main players to split.
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