Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening, J.T. Walsh, Pat Hingle, Charles Napier
Running Time: 110 minutes
Synopsis: In Los Angeles, Roy (John Cusack) is a small-time con artist who makes a living in dingy bars. His mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston), only 14 years older than her son, is a career swindler who fixes horserace odds for mobster Bobo (Pat Hingle). Lilly reunites with Roy after a long absence, and immediately disapproves of his girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening). Lilly wants Roy to quit grifting, while Myra wants him to graduate to more lucrative "long cons", leading to a triangular conflict.
What Works Well: The adaptation Jim Thompson's novel builds tense relationships between three desperate con artists, and allows intentional drift to determine their fate. The people are the focus, rather than any grand con, and Anjelica Huston embraces Lilly as a tragic yet still proud career crook content to waste her life serving the mob as long as she can pilfer a few dollars on the side. Annette Bening as Myra is her younger counterpoint, purring with sexuality and pursuing the dream of audacious cons in pursuit of big bucks.
What Does Not Work As Well: Roy, Lilly, and Myra are all distinctly unlikeable, robbing the drama of any heart, a vacuum made worse by a miscast John Cusack who never gets to grips with Roy and fails to match the intensity of his co-stars. In contrast the mobster Bobo and Myra's ex-partner Cole (J.T. Walsh) emerge as smarter and more complex, but they are afterthoughts in this story. Transposing 1940s film noir sensibilities into modern-day Los Angeles is only partially successful, and many scenes of dialogue come across as cringey and simply fake. The script is also careless when needed, including Lilly exposing her trunk-full-of-cash to any passerby.
Key Quote:
Myra: I'm Roy's friend.
Lilly: Yes. I imagine you're lots of people's friend.
Myra (taking a good look at Lilly): Oh, of course, now that I see you in the light, you're plenty old enough to be Roy's mother.
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