Julian RuncanThe Grifters: I Feel Cheated
August 4th 2010 20:03
I like noiry-type things. If a movie is about a room of chain-smokers getting screwed over by some dame, chances are I'm a fan. While The Grifters has that old school vibe, hell at times I'd even say it felt like a Hitchcock movie, there was something missing. The film is a little slow, the plot entirely uninteresting, and as much as I love John Cusack, he is terribly miscast this time around.
The film's main issue, apart from showing me characters I can't relate to acting out a story I don't care about, is the utter lack of tonal balance. At times the film feels like it's trying to be "fun" like other con-man movies, but failing terribly. Other times, things get surprisingly dark but still feel out of place. These shifts don't feel like creative departures, rather they feel as if the director couldn't decide what type of movie he was trying to make, and just hoped everything would piece together nicely.
Even the dialogue can't stay on beat, relentlessly alternating between delightfully snarky and needlessly melodramatic. Any time it felt as if they were close to hitting that noir back-and-forth, out comes a line that made me cringe, painfully reminding me how inauthentic the movie was. I wanted to get into it, I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't buy what it was selling.
Even as a fan of John Cusack and Anjelica Huston, I feel this movie had almost no redeeming qualities. If you want a good example of a neo-noir film, watch Chinatown. If you want an interesting movie about con men, there are dozens of better ones to choose from. Sure, I will admit that The Grifters occasionally managed to mimic some of the feel of a noir film, but it never came close to attaining any of the charm.
4.0/10
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