When movie goers see “The Hoax,” they are first assaulted by the words “based on the actual events” looming before them in a stark, traditional typewriter font.

The words refer to two men, who, in a mad attempt to scam money and make names for themselves, fabricate an autobiography of legendary American billionaire Howard R. Hughes.

Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving, an author hungry for fame and fortune. Alfred Molina plays Richard Susskind, Irving’s friend and researcher. The two men are perfect opposites. Irving’s smooth lies and confident exterior are juxtaposed with Susskind’s sweating, bumbling uneasiness.

Molina manages to step out of Gere’s hefty shadow while portraying Susskind, who is determined not to be one-upped by Irving. Together, they attempt to pull off the biggest hoax in literary history.

The movie follows the events leading up to the birth of Irving’s scheme and the writing of the faux autobiography.

Irving, a struggling novelist with his house in foreclosure, cooks up a plan to write an autobiography of the reclusive billionaire using concocted interviews and a manuscript belonging to former Hughes associate Noah Dietrich. The book is littered with an odd mix of fiction and fact.

“The Hoax” begins grounded in reality. But Irving’s attempts to capture the ludicrous eccentricities of a brilliant recluse turn the movie into a crazy dream of reality and fantasy.

The more far-fetched Irving’s lies become, the easier it is for his associates to believe them. Irving starts seeing things in dream sequences, where real events merge with his rampant imaginings. This engulfs the audience in his elaborate fiction. What follows is the complete downfall of a man obsessed with money and fame.

Gere richly captures the desperation of a man gambling everything on a risky hand. His compulsive, fearless lies stem from the false confidence that he would be the only man capable of capturing the famous Hughes in words.

Gere succeeds in embodying the dizzying obsession that commands a person who desperately wishes to be on top. The audience becomes submerged in Irving’s subconsciousness, forgetting where the truth ended and the lies began.

The cinematography of the lie sequences consists of a collage of lucid color images of truthful events mixed with airy images of black and white fantasy. This stylistic choice by director Lasse Hallstrom embodies the cooked-up, pasted-together nature of Irving’s blatant lies. It effectively focuses attention on his rambling fantasies and segregates them from reality.

By the end of “The Hoax,” truth and reality become one in a twisted, alternate universe Irving has imagined. The movie sucks the audience in, forcing viewers into the head of a crazed liar.

Viewers lose grip on their own sense of reality through the strongly convincing fiction spun by the movie, and even begin to find sympathy for this once arrogant man.

“The Hoax” is a tantalizing peek into the mind of a man whose imagination produced an outrageous scam while chasing money and notoriety. In the end, his thirst for fame produced only infamy.

Meg Greene can be reached at [email protected].