Grifters

Pros: Story, Cast, Direction, Score
Cons: The story will knock the wind out of you. Not for the faint of heart.

The Grifters (1990) is a great change of pace movie for those who think they have seen everything. My bud Stephen_Murray is a film noir buff but even he hasn’t (I think) seen The Grifters, which couldn’t be a better example of noir ...

Pros: Annette Bening looking very wuzzly. A fascinating look at a different way of life.
Cons: Cusack's a little flat.

The Grifters was the film that put the Miramax studio on the map back in 1990. Dark and dirty, it’s the story of three twisted individuals that put foxes and rats to shame in the sly and cunning stakes. All three of the film’s players are professional...

Pros: Angelica Huston in her best role to date.
Cons: This film is not for the faint of heart. It is psychologically disturbing.

Occasionally, a film comes along that defies Hollywood stereotype by eschewing its sub-standard conventions for “the bottom line” of offending nobody and liking everybody so we can all whistle on the way home. The worst offense for me in Hollywood films...

Pros: direction, script, cast, costumes, characters, originality
Cons: not for kids

"The Grifters" is a lurid, tense film that explores the lives of three con artists and their relationships to each other. While the violence, language, and sexual situations may offend some people, it does not detract from the film's message,...

Pros: Tense, noirish drama
Cons: None to speak of

The Grifters is the film that put Miramax on the map, an ambitious and gritty film noir that is formula free and without an audience-tested ending. Based on a seedy '50s novel, The Grifters revels in a criminal world -- it glorifies the crime of its...

Pros: All involved in fine form
Cons: nothing major, to speak of.

The Grifters are an amoral little trio, gritty yet semi-sophisticated, cunning but cool, both seedy and sassy.

Cusack, Benning and Huston play crafty characters who scratch out a living from cons, hustles, shams and scams.
The three...

Pros: Cusack is good, Benning gets nude
Cons: Bad ending, drags at the end

I rented this movie about 9 years after it was released on video on the recommendation of a trusted co-worker. I came into the movie as a big John Cusack fan and remain one - but this is not one of his best movies in my opinion.

Cusack plays...