In the perfect con, says the scheming Stephen in "The Brothers Bloom," everyone -- even the mark who's being played -- gets what they want.

That makes writer-director Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom" the perfect con-artist movie, because it delivers pretty much all the excitement, humor and charm an audience could want.

We meet the brothers, older brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and younger brother Bloom (Adrien Brody), first as children. Shuttled about from one foster family to the next, the brothers learn to survive by engaging in confidence games. Stephen would devise the cons, and the more innocent-looking Bloom would make sure the cons paid off.

A lifetime of this has worn down the morose Bloom, who tells Stephen he wants to live "an unwritten life" where he doesn't have to put on an act. Stephen persuades Bloom to do one last job. The mark: Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz), a rich New Jersey eccentric who lives in an oversized mansion, usually alone but constantly studying whatever skill she fancies -- from juggling chainsaws to making pinhole cameras. (This bit of business leads to one of the most loopily creative montages in recent memory.)

Soon, Stephen and Bloom have persuaded Penelope to join them on an international adventure through Greece, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Russia -- accompanied by the brothers' enigmatic demolitions expert Bang-Bang (played by "Babel's" Rinko Kikuchi). From steamer ship to train, Penelope becomes intoxicated by the adventure, and she and Bloom start to fall in love.

But can Bloom trust that he's really in love, or just playing a part for the con? It's hard to tell when Stephen -- who, Bloom says, "creates cons the way dead Russians write novels, full of symbolism and subtext" -- is the one pulling the strings.

Johnson takes some worthy risks with the casting. Most directors would have cast Brody and Ruffalo in the other's roles -- but it pays off to make the usually serious Ruffalo the fast-talking con and the goofy Brody the melancholy brooder. Weisz dives gleefully into her role, giving the flighty Penelope a dash of spunk. And Kikuchi, uttering only two words of dialogue, silently steals the movie with her Keatonesque timing.

Johnson brings the same gift for enjoyably stylized dialogue that marked his debut, the high-school noir "Brick." There also are loopy visual touches (like the booze-drinking camel) and a cleverly intricate plot that keeps the viewer off guard to the end, which makes "The Brothers Bloom" a fizzy brain-teaser of a movie.

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