Directed by:
Stephen FrearsScreenplay:
Donald E. WestlakeCinematography:
Oliver StapletonComposer:
Elmer BernsteinCast:
Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening, Stephen Tobolowsky, Henry Jones, Eddie Jones, Sandy Baron, Gailard Sartain, Pat Hingle, Jeremy Piven (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
When small-time cheat Roy Dillon (John Cusack) winds up in hospital following an unsuccessful scam, it sets up a confrontation between his estranged mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston) and alluring girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening). Both Lilly and Myra are con artists playing the game in a league far above Roy, and always looking for their next victim. As Roy finds himself caught in a complicated web of passion and mistrust, the question is who’s conning who? (101 Films)
(more)Reviews (1)
Jim Thompson adapted by Donald Westlak. It's a secret dream of a fan of rough crime movies completely ruined by the boring Frears´ direction, who makes the footage to seem twice as long. Movies by Thompson have always been short, striking and uncompromising. In any case, converting less than two hundred pages into almost two hours of footage means, as a result, completely preventing the movie from progressing, that has this subversive Oedipus complex (which, despite the setting is not a heist) on paper. In addition, it could (and should) have been more visually stylized into noir, no one will talk me out of it. In any case, it is not bad, especially thanks to the dialogs, which are often taken word for word from the book and the fact that the acting is brilliant.
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