Review of The Grifters (1990) by Katherine M — 23 Aug 2007

This movie is the perfect antidote for David Mamet's tiresome movies about con games and double cons and triple cons and ad infinitum. Cusack, his mother Huston, and his girlfriend Bening are desperate, pathetic criminals who talk about all the great scams they've pulled, but in reality they're scrounging for every dollar with cheap bits of sleight-of-hand or screwing their landlords to get out of paying rent.

the grim denouement is shocking no matter how clearly these lives are bound toward tragedy.