Directed by Stephen Frears • 1990 • United States
Starring John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening

Stephen Frears’s deliciously dark pulp thriller stars John Cusack as a small-time confidence man caught in the middle of a high-stakes con involving his own grifter girlfriend (Annette Bening) and ruthless criminal mother (Anjelica Huston in a knockout, Oscar-nominated performance). Adapted from the classic novel by master of hardboiled existentialism Jim Thompson, by fellow crime expert Donald E. Westlake, this poisonous saga of double crosses and deception conjures a sleekly stylized universe that roils with unsettling oedipal undercurrents.