Review of The Grifters (1990) by Patrick B — 08 Feb 2008

The Grifters is a con movie with a lot of wasted potential. The movie has so many interesting characters like Roy (John Cusack) who lives his life on small-time cons. Annette Bening also plays a grifter who tries to coerce Roy into committing bigger scores, then you have Angelica Huston's character who plays Roy's mom, and it's apparent that Roy and his mom have a weird relationship.

With all of these interesting characters, why wasn't there any backstabbing, or twists, or anything that makes con movies interesting. You can see what happens to these characters from a mile away.

I thought the movie was being deceptive with it revealing the characters' intents way before the end, but it wasn't. How you think it's going to end is pretty much how it ends. The ending is fairly disappointing as well.

The characters were fun to watch when it came to the interactions. All actors involved did a fantastic job with the characters. If only the screenwriter could write a more lively script with more twists and turns, The Grifters could have been a very engrossing noir.

The pieces are there, just nobody bothered to connect them.