"The Hoax" Released April 6, Wide Release April 13

People will believe what you tell them to. People will believe what they want to believe. As long as those two things jive, then you can have anyone in the palm of your hand. For a long time, those things meshed for Clifford Irving, who is the latest portrayal of Richard Gere in "The Hoax," about an incredible fiction Irving wrote in 1971 about reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. What makes it interesting, is that he passed it off as a biography and, for a long time, people bought the story.

"The Hoax," due to hit theaters in April, tells the story of one of the greatest lies ever told.

Clifford Irving thought the hoax would work because Howard Hughes was a recluse. Surely, he wouldn't come forward to say that none of these conversations had ever happened. Howard Hughes had been hiding in his hole for more than a decade at this point. He probably wouldn't even know about the book, being much too wrapped up in being a recluse. And even if Hughes did come forth, he wasn't known for having a firm grip on reality. It was indeed a brilliant plan. But, as brilliant plans often do, this one disintegrated when people started asking questions.

Apparently, the whole thing started as an elaborate joke, but Clifford Irving is soon caught up (things are always fine until someone gets "caught up" in something) in his own deception. Joke turns to crime and things turn dark.

Things get really interesting when Clifford Irving finds possible links between Howard Hughes and the embattled Nixon administration, and we all know what was going on with the Nixon administration in 1971. Bad, bad things.

Clifford Irving was a journalist. He should have known that, if you dig long enough in any patch of grass, you're bound to find something buried. Everyone has skeletons, especially people with money. Money always comes attached to the bleached bones of some untruth. Scandal is everywhere. Finding it takes only patience. That is probably the lure, the Holy Grail. It is also the beginning of the end.