Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford)’s Timeline and Summary
- We meet Johnny in the opening scene of this movie, where he cons bagman Mottolla out of thousands of dollars with his partner, Luther.
- Later that same night, Johnny takes his share of the money and blows it on a suit and one spin of a roulette wheel.
- He heads back to Luther's and tells him what happened. Luther scolds him and says that he (Luther) is getting out of the grifting game to go legit.
- He tells Johnny he should look up a guy named Henry Gondorff in Chicago to help him (Johnny) pull off one big con.
- Back on the street, Johnny gets chased down by a cop named Lt. Snyder. Snyder tells Johnny that the money he stole that day belonged to a mobster named Doyle Lonnegan, and Snyder says he'll turn Johnny over to the mob if he doesn't get Johnny's cut of the money.
- Johnny lost the money, so he gives Snyder counterfeit bills instead.
- When Snyder is gone, Johnny rushes to Luther's house to find that Luther has already been killed by the mob. He vows revenge and barely escapes some hitmen himself before heading for Chicago.
- In Chicago, Johnny tracks down Henry Gondorff and asks the man how to pull a big con on Doyle Lonnegan. Henry is reluctant at first, but then he rises to the challenge.
- Johnny sits down with Henry and Henry's criminal buddies to come up with a strategy for how to get Lonnegan. They eventually create a fake betting scheme.
- Johnny and Henry get on a train where Lonnegan is running an illegal poker game. After Henry cheats Lonnegan out of money, Johnny goes to Lonnegan and tells him everything about the cheat. The only thing is that Johnny is posing as one of Henry's lackeys. He tells Lonnegan he wants to take down Henry and Lonnegan reluctantly agrees to hear him out.
- After his first contact with Lonnegan, Johnny heads back to his apartment and barely escapes being killed by a couple of hitmen. Henry later asks him if something's wrong, but Johnny won't admit it.
- Johnny gets scooped up by Lt. Snyder, who takes him to an FBI surveillance station. Johnny is told by the FBI that he needs to betray Henry or they'll arrest Luther Coleman's entire family. Johnny agrees.
- Johnny eventually forms a relationship with a waitress named Loretta. They sleep together, but the very next day a gunman shoots Loretta in the head.
- We only find out afterward that Loretta was one of Lonnegan's hitmen and that Henry hired the gunman to take her out.
- At the end of the movie Johnny pulls the big con on Lonnegan and it works. Both Lt. Snyder and Lonnegan watch as Johnny fakes his own death and they both buy it. So it looks like Johnny will walk away from this con totally in the clear.