Watch The Grifters For Free

It is a performances centric movie

Fantastic!

The first must-see film of the year.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Stephen Frears makes smart movies, icydk. This is a 'best work' film for its featured players, young and old: John Cusack, Angelica Huston, Annette Bening, Pat Hingle -- and icon Henry Jones as the quintessential night clerk. Old-timey feel, modern look. Human viciousness codified in rules of 'the grift' -- con artistry. Acquiescence to quiet violences a given along the way. The camera watches, unflinchingly. Comic and disturbing, and instructional.From a 1963 novel about a 25-year-old man by a then-57-year-old author -- so from a sensibility formed by the 1920s, 30s, 40s . . . peppered with lots of quaint jargon, plausibly spoken by fine actors in a modern setting. I kept thinking of Edward Hopper's 1942 painting 'Nighthawks', as if the denizens of Hopper's all-night diner left in cars with automatic transmissions and drove to hotel rooms to watch remote-controlled cable TV.Fascinating machine of a plot compels audience engagement, thus sustains low-key *natural* behaviors of actors playing con artists -- experts at blending in. Subtle work, restraint, discipline. Young actors should watch and learn.

I heard Elmer Bernstein's funky theme for "The Grifters" before I saw the film. When I finally saw it, I appreciated how much Elmer's music was part of the magic. "The Grifters" is neo-noir on steroids, but with a light touch.It's about people who seem to live in a parallel universe. No nine-to-fivers here. They live by their wits with the art of the con almost a religion. For a story where the three main characters have almost no redeeming traits, this is one of the most absorbing movies you will ever see.Roy Dillon (John Cusack) is a small-time con artist. When his estranged mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston) comes to visit him in Los Angeles, their meeting is more like a collision. The bond between mother and son has an edge that is slowly revealed. Adding to all the bad chemistry is Mrya Langtry (Annette Bening), Roy's girlfriend.Their world is peopled with men like Bobo Justus, Lilly's brutal bookie boss and Mrya's ex-partner, Cole Langley, a master of the long con. These two are played by Pat Hingle and J.T. Walsh, adding to the overload of talent in this movie.John Cusack plays it low-key, but you feel his Roy Dillon has almost too much going on beneath the surface. Anjelica Huston's Lilly is tall, aloof and calculating but can't shake loose from her scamming lifestyle; her relationship with the unpredictable Bobo is a scary one.Hard as it was to steal the show off Cusack and Huston, Annette Bening as Myra just about manages it. This is a sexy, totally uninhibited performance, but served up with genuine wit; Myra's dealings with the landlord, the jeweller and all the men in the film are fascinating too watch.The film was directed by Englishman, Stephen Frears. The outsider view can be the most penetrating and I think that explains the unusual ambiance of this movie, right down to the way Los Angeles is photographed. The film almost feels like it's set in the 1940's although it is actually present day - 1990 that is."The Grifters" is a desert island disc for me. When the interventionists arrive to throw out my decades of accumulated stuff, they will have to prise the DVD of "The Grifters" out of my tightly clenched fingers.

The Grifters is an ultra slick, ultra dark Neo Noir set in an ambiguous time zone of a fifties stylised nineties. It portrays a world of con artists and narcissistic low life hell bent on unconscious tide into self annihilation. John Cusack plays Roy Dillon a Grifter who plays small time tricks with the various 'marks' who he discovers in various dives and race tracks. Psychological analysis of confidence-men says that they display an arrogance only else where displayed by psychopaths, Cusack plays this out well his ice cool facade dressed in suits that melt him amongst the crowd. Unfortunately for him (both as a character and possibly as an actor) he's got dealings with two incredibly powerful women. Being his main squeeze Myra (played by the always awesome Annette Benning) a lady whose sexual mesmerism and bimbo smokescreen conceals a razor sharp mind of chess master par excellence. Roy's mother (Angelica Huston),Lilly could be Myra's older twin, thus exploring a certain taboo subject that goes all the way back to Greek Tragedy. Stephen Frears (possibly at the height of his power) directs, so you know what your getting is quality. Adapted from a novel by Jim Thomson, a writer whom could out dark James Ellroy or any other devil dog of the hardboiled you care to fling. This is pitch black portrayal of the human heart as thrown into the molten lava consistency of hell.

Man, talk about a slow-burn. Going into The Grifters I was expecting a slick and quick-paced con thriller, but what I got was something much darker and much more absorbing. Director Stephen Frears, working off a script by Donald Westlake (adapted from the Jim Thompson novel) lets these characters get established before they start to bring us into the tangled web they are all weaving.Roy Dillon (John Cusack) is a con man pulling small jobs every day to slowly build up his savings, while his girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Bening) is doing anything she can to get by and his mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston) is working on a long play of her own. The tagline of "Who's conning who?" always makes me roll my eyes, but it's actually an accurate portrayal here, as these three play each other back and forth, while the film itself is pulling the veil over the audience.The Grifters is a brooding noir that throws back a lot to the '40s and it's Hitchcock roots, including some direct homages that feel appropriate for the story rather than cheap rip-offs. The film delves into some potentially melodramatic moments at times, but Frears is able to keep things in tune with it's seething roots as opposed to letting things get too theatrical.All three actors are working at top form here; Cusack was just starting to break out and this role should really be considered more among the best of his career, Huston steals the show in every scene and Bening (someone I've always despised) is seductive and very compelling. I thought that Bening was phoning it in a bit at first, but as more is revealed about the character you realize that she's conning herself as much as she is everyone else. Frears crafts this one with a great tone that the actors play into very well, with some powerful sexual undertones and a dynamite finale.