Swindle (film)

Swindle is a children's film that premiered August 24, 2013 on Nickelodeon. The production stars Noah Crawford, Chris O'Neal, Jennette McCurdy, Noah Munck, Ariana Grande, Ciara Bravo, and Fred Ewanuick. Based on Gordon Korman's novel of the same name. The movie tells the story of Griffin (Noah Crawford), a boy whose friend Ben (Chris O'Neal) finds a rare and valuable baseball card. Unaware of the card's value, Griffin looks to sell the card to a local collectibles dealer. The dealer claims he is the original owner of the card. Griffin, with the help of fellow students, attempts to retrieve the card. A sneak peek premiered on Nickelodeon during three Sam & Cat episodes. The August 24 premiere was viewed by over 4.2 million viewers on TV.

The film was released on DVD on March 19, 2014.

Plot
Griffin "The Brains" Bing (Noah Crawford) is a teenage boy known for helping out his friends in times of need. His friend, Ben "The Best Friend" Dupree (Chris O'Neal), and his family are in the danger of losing their home. The story takes a major turn when the boys find a Honus Wagner baseball card inside Ben's house. Without realizing its actual worth, they decide to sell it to Paul Swindell (Fred Ewanuick), a collector, who agrees to buy the card for $350. The next morning, Griffin and Ben discover that Swindle has claimed to have found the card himself and plans to sell it for $1.2 million. The two meet Swindle, who refuses to return the card. Griffin forms a team in order to perform a challenging heist. Besides Griffin and Ben, the team consists of Amanda "The Gymnast" Benson (Ariana Grande), Savannah "The Actress" Westcott (Jennette McCurdy), and Darren "The Muscle" Vader (Noah Munck). Melissa "The Hacker" Bing (Ciara Bravo), Griffin's younger sister, attempts to join the team but Griffin rejects her. Together the team attempts to sneak into Swindle's shop. Griffin finds the card but is worried that they would be potential suspects in an investigation of the card. After Melissa saves the team from being caught by hacking into the shop's alarm system, they let her join the team dubbing her "The Hacker." Griffin then plans to have Swindell hand over the card to them. Subsequently, Anton Lefevre, a wealthy businessman, invites Swindell to auction off the card to him.

Using video camera glasses with an ear piece, Amanda goes to the house of Eddie (a "nerd king" who owns many rare collectibles and is infatuated with Amanda) to find a rare, red-headed Captain Cybertor toy. He lends the toy to her in return for a date with him. The team plans to get the card at the Lakeshore Hotel, where Swindell is planning to sell it. Before going to their room, Melissa secretly hacks into the system and switches rooms. Their room is a crown suite, but Swindell's is a basement hotel room. After the hacking, Savannah pretends to be Swindell's daughter and asks for the hotel room key to the crown suite. Savannah and Darren then pretend to be a couple of German kids who do not know the figure's actual price and sell it to him for $10. He then goes to a massage with Griffin disguised as Lefevre during which he gets a phone call from a collector named Ivan Volkov, who has been searching for a red-headed Captain Cybertor. Meanwhile, the makeup that Amanda put on him starts to melt. However, he leaves the spa just in time.

Swindell retrieves gets the rare figure, but Amanda swaps it for a normal blue one. He sells it to Volkov for $80,000, but later sees through Ben's mustache disguise and finds Ben's room card, which he purposely dropped and gets to the gang's room. The gang confronts Swindell and tells him about the Cybertor switch. They offer him the red Cybertor in return for the Honus Wagner card and show him the CCTV footage, which Melissa hacked that shows Volkov angry at Swindell for giving him the blue one, but Swindell lunges for it so they throw it around until Ben accidentally throws it off the balcony and on to a couple's wedding cake. They all start to chase after it. Meanwhile, Ben's dad is at the hotel and is showing off his invention called the iGotit, hoping to win a cash prize.

After disrupting the wedding, the gang finally retrieves the Cybertor. They offer to give it to Swindell to Volkov (Savannah's dad in disguise) if he gives them the card. When he attempts to leave the hotel, he bumps into an employee who spills his case revealing a load of fake Honus Wagner cards with his face on them. A hotel employee comes up to Swindell with a bill of $35,000. Back at the hotel, the gang celebrate and reveal they to be the actual owners of the card to Lefevre who invites them into the auction for it.

At the end, Griffin rewards the gang with $25,000 for their help. Ben explains his family did not need the money because his dad got cash from the iGotit after he inadvertently punched out Swindell, which had been getting him thousands of orders from police stations. They also used the money to send the wedding couple on a real honeymoon. Afterwards, Griffin decides the group should continue to foil swindlers, after a little girl asks for Griffin's help when she needs to get her bird back from a groomer. This is an amazing movie. Highly recommend

Main cast

 * Noah Crawford as Griffin Bing ("The Brains")
 * Fred Ewanuick as Paul Swindell ("The Swindler")
 * Ciara Bravo as Melissa Bing ("The Hacker")
 * Jennette McCurdy as Savannah Westcott ("The Actress")
 * Chris O'Neal as Ben Dupree ("The Best Friend"/"The Sidekick")
 * Noah Munck as Darren Vader ("The Muscle")
 * Ariana Grande as Amanda "Mandy" Benson ("The Gymnast"/"Mandy the Mutant")

Minor cast

 * Sandy Robson as Anton Leferve ("The Auctioner")
 * Gardiner Millar as Mr. Westcott ("The Actor")
 * Mitchell Duffield as Eddie Goldmeyer
 * Chris Shields as Ben's dad
 * Lucia Walters as Ben's mom
 * Farrah Aviva as the bride
 * Aurelio DiNunzio as the bride's father
 * Phillip Lee as Joy the Jock
 * Marrett Green as News Reporter
 * Ecstasia Sanders as Hotel Manager
 * Claudio Encarnacion Montero as PJ
 * Tabitha St. Germain as Ariel

Reception
The film received a rating of 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb.com and Common Sense Media gave it a rating of 4/5 stars.