Rating: 
Summary: Great Pulp Fiction
Review: "The Grifters" is a great realization of writer Jim Thompson's pulp novel to the screen. Kudos to director Stephen Frears and Donald Westlake's screenplay for translating this work to the screen. The film concerns itself with a trio of con artists but the mark this time is the soul of one of these combatants. Lily(Anjelica Huston) has been at this game practically from the womb but she discourages her son, Roy(John Cusack), from the grift. Roy's current squeeze, Myra(Annette Bening) has different plans for him. Myra has done the big con and she sees Roy as her meal ticket to easy street. Huston has never been better as the grifter with questionable maternal instincts. Bening superficial sweetness betrays an interior of larceny. Roy, though he does not have the stomach for the big grift, is not blind to the machinations of Lily and Myra. Cusack does an excellent job showing bemusement as these two mother hens fight over him. "The Grifters" has enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. It's inevitable conclusion is so shocking that I dare not reveal it here. Just marvel at some very talented artists that are on the top of their game.
Rating: 
Summary: AN INTERESTING NEO-NOIR MOVIE.
Review: "The Grifters" is one of the earliest Neo-Noir films that appeared in the early 1990s, and it helped to pave the way to films like "Pulp Fiction" or "The Usual Suspects", because the Film Noir genre was a little under the radar in the early 1990s.
"The Grifters" has a talented cast that includes John Cusack, Anjelica Huston and the beautiful Annette Bening. Perhaps the best interaction between characters are the hate-envy relationship between Anjelica's character and Annette's character, they hate each other and they are capable of some dirty tricks to make disappear the other.
"The Grifters" gets better in the final 30 minutes, a lot of interesting revelations are made, and the characters reveal their real intentions.
Rating:
Summary: Treat Your Children Well
Review: 'The Grifters' is so far removed from most people's reality that it lives in that netherworld called a fairy tale or maybe even more to the point a nightmare.
The world of 'The Grifters' is a world of bookies, murder, torture, betrayal, incest and of course, thievery. Some of what goes on; especially in the beginning involving Lilly (Angelica Huston) at the racetrack is so complicated as to become Byzantine in nature.
But at the core of 'The Grifters' is the odd, fascinating relationship of Lilly and her son Roy (John Cusack) that plays out like a modern day Oedipus Rex. And isn't Myra (Annette Bening), Roy's girlfriend really Lilly as a younger woman? And isn't that why Lilly can't stomach her?
Stephen Frears directs with a magical eye on all the details both physical and personal. And Huston, Cusack and Bening have never been more emphatically truthful since. This is inspired filmmaking of the highest order.
Rating:
Summary: Mommie Dearest, Pt II....
Review: ...the seedy world of the small time con artist comes to life in this great, overlooked vid in which the actors all have seemingly a great time fleshing out these folk...ya just gotta love the acting and all the story twists. The divine Anjelica Huston is to die for in this one. One of mine all time favorite movies.
Rating:
Summary: "A person who do'nt look out for himself is too dumb...
Review: ..to lookout for anyone else, he's a liability" "or else he's working an angle.If he does'nt steal a little, he's stealing big"
Anjelica Huston was impeccable in this role. In fact everyone was great! When I read Jim Thompson, my imajination always paints a very bleak black and white world, but Stephen Frears hit the mark in color, and with much more attractive people.
And the music of Elmer Bernstein was a perfect juxtaposition to the noir motif
Rating:
Summary: Nice Special Edition of a great movie
Review: A fantastic movie about con artists. The tone of this movie is perfect: utterly unsentimental, deadpan, cool and calculated. Great score, great performances (not just the three leads, there are tons of bit parts that are very memorable), great dialogue. The pacing is snappy. I'm not going to say the movie is flawless, but honestly I can't think of anything particularly negative to say about it.The DVD is a modest collector's edition. Some may say the extra features are a bit spare, but what is here is very useful and informative. The commentary track is consistantly listenable. There are four participants: the director, the screenwriter, and stars Cusack and Huston. The four were recorded separately and edited together seamlessly to make an entertaining and insightful track. Also here are two short but well-made featurettes, one covers the making of the film and the other sheds some light on the work of the author who wrote the book upon which the film is based.
Rating:
Summary: Superb Film
Review: As movie adaptions of books go this is a great one. That being said the setting in time of the film is about thirty years later than the book. This prevents the story line of Carol the nurse, who as a child was in a Nazi concentration camp, from being developed. Her relationship with Roy is skipped in the movie and of course since it is set thirty years later she is too young to have been in a concentration camp in World War II. Much of Thompson's dialogue from the book is in the film and it is from another time and doesn't always fit to a 90s time setting. Aside from moving the movie to thirty years in the future this is a great adaption that is very faithful to Thompson's story. Anjelica Huston is perfect. John Cusack and Annette Bening are not too shabby either. A superb film.
Rating:
Summary: A pleasureable ride.
Review: Awesome acting and filmwork made seeing "The Grifters" one of the most surprising and eye-opening experiences I think any filmgoer has observed of recent years. I could still watch this film 10 more times without growing tired or bored with it. Thanks mostly to Anjelica Huston for giving a movie what it's needed for quite awhile...Fine Acting!
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST OF FILM NOIR (EIGHTIES STYLE)
Review: Based of the Jim Thompson novella - this film takes you into the world of small-time conmen (and women) - filled with intrigue, deceit and doublecrossing. Three flawless performances by Huston, Cusack and Bening bring the book to life. Roy Dillon (Cusack) is a young man learning the con trade, following in the footsteps of his estranged mother, Lilly (Huston), who runs a horsetrack betting con for her boss. Roy meets Moira (Bening), a psycho sexkitten who runs "long-cons" and has just lost her partner and who tries to get Roy to join up with her. The sexual tension between these three (especially between Roy and his mom!) and their lust for money drives them to the edge. This film has a great 1950's film noir atmosphere. The ending will leave you gasping!
Rating: 
Summary: Rather overrated.
Review: Based on the pulpy Jim Thompson novel, *The Grifters* eliminates some of the book's sillier aspects -- problem is, there's not much of a story left. Instead, we're given an ENDLESS series of flashbacks which, the filmmakers feel, must EXPLAIN these characters and how they got here, how they became who they are, etc. When so much of your movie is constituted of flashbacks, you may very well doubt the viability of your story. Another nit to pick: director Stephen Frears mistakenly attempted to keep the book's snappy Post-War urban lingo intact, to say nothing of the basic lifestyle of the "confidence game" (a dead profession whose only remnant is that reliable stand-by, credit-card fraud. "Big" con? Why bother? Selling drugs is easier.) He would've been better advised to either set the movie in its original period or make the characters talk like people living in 1990 Los Angeles. The world of *The Grifters* seems unreal, or at least moving in a parallel universe . . . and surrealism's not the best tone to set in a crime movie. I feel the acting's been overpraised, too. Angelica Huston plays Lilly as if she's Lady Macbeth. Some will say it's brilliant; I say it's irrealistic and reaches too much. Annette Bening? OK, lemme get this straight: she's supposed to be a consummate con-woman . . . and yet, she has her hair done up a la Medusa, she's dressed like a tart, preening and purring all over the place like a cat in heat. Uh, that's not a con; that's "BAD GIRL" in Vegas neon visible for miles. (The point of a con-artist is to FOOL people.) Say much the same for Huston's 1950's peroxide fright-wig, by the way. John Cusack, however, is the best thing in the movie: he's snide, tough, and totally self-interested, befitting such a character. And Pat Hingle is overwhelming as Lilly's terrifying mob boss, Bobo. (That scene with the pillow-case full of oranges still lingers ten years later.) *The Grifters* has its moments, but its flaws simply run too deep to prompt a whole-hearted recommendation.
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