Director Project

Director: Stephen Frears (Final Film)

The Grifters is a pulpy Oedipal story influenced strongly by Greek tragedy and my earliest comparison to another film comes in the form of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror Psycho.

This film isn't a horror, and perhaps due to my real lack of knowledge regarding neo-noir I'm stuck for anything real to connect it to, but what I loved about the film, and the characters especially is that they're essentially conning everyone else, but also they're conning themselves. Conning themselves into believing what they want to believe and overall, the film, despite me not really having talked much about it, is a spectacularly performed and put together tour of excellence.

It's a twisty sleight of the hand that proves to be a slightly complex con act performed by an accomplished and confident Stephen Frears. I'm not one to often recommend a film, but this is certainly at least well worth watching.

What starts off as another simple con movie about grifters quickly delves into a fascinating character study.
The film is filled with spine tingling twists throughout and never ceases to keep the viewer wondering who's going to get conned.
All three lead actors: John Cusack, Annette Bening,and Anjelica Huston(especially Huston) give some of the best performances of their careers. Each scene becomes a model for great acting as well as brilliant storytelling.
Stephen Frears really went all out with this film and raises the "con story" to the heights of greek tragedy. The finale is so stunning and it leaves the viewer only hanging on for more.
Subtle theme of the film could be boiled down to "crime doesn't pay"; but the complexities of this theme crash down on all three main characters as well as the viewer.

"Well, who's a boy gonna talk to if not his mother?"

Who would have thought Lester Burnham's wife could play a conniving Bimbo to perfection?

John Cusack excels in a restrained performance.

Anjelica Huston as expected nails down the part of the experienced grifter who has seen it all.

A juicy neo noir with killer lines with twists and turns around the corner!

Anjelica can kill me any day

A small-time conman has torn loyalties between his estranged mother and new girlfriend--both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

What a lot of fun, I loved the tone of the twisty cat and mouse elements. Everyone knows exactly what sort of film they're in and it works. I can see me revisiting this when I just want something that is fun but still has a stamp of quality.

Plus young Annette Benning was a knockout!

4x

Kinda feels like a con game in that you go in waiting for the big long con twist, only to find out there... isn't one. Works passably well as noir, I guess (just forty years too late and with way more nudity), but keeps introducing threads (or threads via flashback) that never really go anywhere. Mediocre.

So dark, cynical and nihilistic yet so well-performed and so well-told. I think my favorite performance from all three leads are in this film.

If you learn your grifting from a guy who dresses like Grifty McGrift, and HE tells YOU you have to dress less obviously, get a real job while you can.

Probably my new favorite Jim Thompson adaptation. Funny, alluring, and shockingly brutal.

"I'm going to stop grifting."

A small-scale but hard boiled flick from author Jim Thompson, who also wrote the inspiration for 'After Dark, My Sweet'. I thought this would be a much more light con flick but it actually is pretty dark. The whole cast is really killer, especially Bening plays the dumb role well and Cusack is cool as hell. I like the fast-livin lifestyle where they are constantly checking out new marks and playing games. The finale is a punch in the gut but the overall story didn't thrill me other than a few little anecdotal-esque scenes.