ViewGuide

Created Feb 18, 2012 10:05PM PST • Edited Aug 20, 2016 03:12PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening use their considerable feminine wiles to control a man-in-the-middle. Talk about a double shot of mature sexiness, even if John Cusack proves barely worthy of their attentions. Of course Huston’s mobbed-up mom takes an immediate dislike to Bening’s sexed-up girlfriend. Cat fight!

   Grifters? A trade name for con artists from back in the day, throwback lingo being essential to this throwback neo-noir movie. It’s not just the language. The Grifters looks like 1990, with computers and Bennigan’s, but feels like the 1963 setting of Jim Thompson’s source novel.

   The Dimestore Dostoevsky’s blithely hardbitten story skirts satire by trailing a pair of extraordinary skirts. Indeed the story is two-thirds female, with Anjelica’s Lilly and Annette’s Myra succeeding as savvy operators within the male underworld. Each received an Oscar nomination for her performance.

   One suspects that if either had gotten an hour alone with each of the judges, she would’ve won.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Annette Bening’s sexually smooth grifter launched her career into orbit. The resulting Oscar nomination brought her to the attention of an eminent movie-star, who cast her in his Bugsy the following year. Then came marriage and Annette pushing a baby carriage. Call it Hollywood Family Values.

   IOW, this is Annette Bening before she became MILF of the Century bearing four kids for Warren Beatty. Gorgeous and strutting are two words that don’t go together nearly enough. They do here.

   Anjelica Huston exudes sophisticated sexiness – smart and leggy. A perfect bagman for the mob, she’s a maternal disaster.

   John Cusack’s not handsome enough to be a credible leading man, nor is he a strong enough actor to hang with his two formidable leading ladies. He basically has one note to play – sullen. That doesn’t go very far.

   Great supporting cast:

   • Stephen Tobolowsky as a jeweler so nerdy he doesn’t recognize Bening’s offer of sexual favors.
   • Pat Hingle as a gambling kingpin with a taste for cruelty.
   • J.T. Walsh as a conman par excellence.
   • Charles Napier as a horny dumb mark.

   And hey, wasn’t that Jeremy Piven as one of the sailors getting conned in a dice game? Why yes, yes it was.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    The Grifters is an L.A. noir, meaning much of the darkness is set in the sun, even as most of the characters are set on themselves. L.A.’s a bitch, so to speak.

    Anyway, how `bout these stellar credits?

    • A Martin Scorsese Production
    • Music by the great Elmer Bernstein
    • Directed by Stephen Frears

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Amongst the Frears canon – High Fidelity, The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons – The Grifters feels most like Dangerous Liaisons given its obsession with erotic gamesmanship.

12. Play Great 4.0

    The “Dimestore Dostoevsky” himself – Jim Thompson – wrote the book.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

    Bernstein’s music doesn’t loom large, but it’s always a pleasure to hear the great screen composer’s work.

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Phoenix City Hall and L.A. City Hall give the film an unmistakable Southwestern vibe.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Oh yeah, lots of edge. Edgy out the wazoo, including Annette Bening’s crazy fun nude skedaddle across John Cuzak’s pad and into his drapes. Lucky stiff.

17. Sex Erotic 2.7

18. Violence Brutal 2.8

    People die. Most do in pulpy noir.

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

    Hollywood makes movies like The Grifters to express their worldview on the American capitalist system. More accurate would be to observe that The Grifters, like The Godfather before it, reflects the movie industry’s sordid business practices.

    Hollywood’s Left Wing economics teaches that because commerce is prone to venality, it’s also fraught with criminality. Never mind how wrong that is. It’s accurate for Hollywood. Down in Tinseltown, they actually recognize this style of doing business.

    Thus The Grifters is a Democratic fantasy movie. If nothing else, Annette Bening’s ultimate girlfriend confirms that the Left’s got the hottest chicks.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Glib 1.8

24. Physical Glib 1.2