Look for the earnest man who says "I think he means it," or the woman in the crowd who says "Won't somebody help that poor man?" Here's how the "fiscal cliff" scam's being played: Congressional Republicans are holding the guns to their own heads.
The police have held town-hall meetings and tacked up fliers in bakeries, banks and bus stops alerting the scam's targets, elderly Chinese women.
One of the scam's victims was Billy Rinehart, a former DNC regional field director, who clicked on the "change password" message while half asleep.
In depicting the scam's victims, the film's director, Craig Zobel, took a postmodern approach, using the techniques of reality television to comment on reality television.
If each of those 20 baby sitters took the same action that Ms. Canales did, that puts the scam's summer take at about $49,000 — and those are just the checks in Mr. Smith's name.
The scam's elaborate setup began Monday afternoon with a simple question on a Chinatown sidewalk, and built itself up in a series of seemingly chance encounters and grave predictions.
