Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.
The Grifters is elevated primarily by its performances — Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, and Annette Bening all deliver sharp, layered work that earned widespread acclaim and Oscar recognition. The neo-noir plot, adapted from Jim Thompson's novel, is tight and morally murky but fairly conventional in structure. Frears' direction is competent and stylish without being visually distinctive. The film's neo-noir credentials give it some flavor but it doesn't reinvent the genre. The ending is genuinely dark and memorably cruel, though it feels abrupt rather than fully earned dramatically.