The Grifters

A conman makes a no-win triangle with his mom and his girlfriend. Lilly works for a bookie, placing bets to change the odds at the track. When her son is hospitalized after an unsuccessful con job and resultant beating, she finds that even an absentee parent has feelings for her child. This causes her own job to go wrong as well. Each of them faces the downside of the grift. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> In Los Angeles, the smalltime crook Roy Dillon is hit by a baseball bat in the stomach when he tries to swindle a bar attendant. His mother Lilly Dillon works in La Jolla for the powerful bookmaker Bobo Justus, who owns the Justus Amusement Company in Baltimore, placing bets to change the odds at the track but also stealing some money for her that she stashes in her Cadillac. When Lilly comes to Los Angeles to a horse race, she pays a visit to Roy after eight years without seeing each other, and she finds that he has an internal hemorrhage and sends him to the hospital, saving his life. When the experienced Lilly sees Roy's girlfriend, the slut and con artist Myra Langtry, she immediately finds that Myra is a roper. But the grieved Roy does not pay attention to his absent mother and decides to travel with Myra to La Jolla to spend a couple of days resting. Myra sooner finds that Roy lives of short-con grift and proposes him a great plan to rope tycoons; further she unravels Lilly's scheme with Bobo's money. When Roy turns Myra and her offer down, the greedy women set in motion a betrayal that brings tragic consequences to each player. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Based in Baltimore, thirty-nine year old Lilly Dillon has long operated on the criminal side of the law, she working for mob bookmaker Bobo Justus placing sizable bets for him at the tracks on long shots to lower the odds without detection to shield him from risk if one of those long shots were to come through. She has systematically been skimming money off the top for some time to have amassed a small fortune, which if Bobo knew may mean her life. When she is directed to place some bets at the track in La Jolla, she decides to visit her twenty-five year old Los Angeles based son, Roy Dillon, who she had when she was only fourteen and who she hasn't seen in close to a decade in their estrangement. Wanting to be his own person, Roy, in Lilly not wanting him on the grift and thus not teaching him the business, has taken it upon himself to learn the short con, he content with this nickel and dime operation in having less risk than the long con which requires multiple players working the con, the short con, which can be done alone, still not without its dangers. Despite their estrangement, there is still an unspoken bond between Lilly and Roy. While Roy cannot or chooses not to see it, Lilly, in knowing the signs, doesn't trust Roy's current girlfriend, seductive Myra Langtry, who uses her sexuality to get what she wants, often in cons. Myra has long been looking for a new partner for the long con, after her last partner in the long con, Cole Langley, had a mental breakdown, Roy the first person since Cole who she has considered the perfect person as a partner. With Bobo and marks factoring into the equation, Lilly, Roy and Myra have a tenuous interrelationship in they each looking out for their own interest, and not fully trusting anyone else on the grift especially each other. —Huggo When con artist Roy Dillon (Cusack) is visited by his Mother, Lilly (Huston), who is also a con artist, she sends Roy off to the hospital because of a blow to the gut he suffered while working the grift. Roy's girlfriend, Myra (Bening), the third con artist, comes to visit Roy, and we discover that Lilly and Myra don't get along. After he is released from the hospital, Roy and Myra go on a little trip, where he is propositioned to be partners in crime with Myra. Everything soon falls apart for the three con artists, which leads to a bloody climax. —Justin Sharp <rainman88@earthlink.net>