The Grift

In brief, this film is about a family of crooks who own a house somewhere outside a small town in the post-WWII United States. They have developed numerous ways to swindle money and goods out of various strangers who happen to stop by their house which looks like a regular country-side family motel. Be sure, they're real masters of this dangerous but profitable business. However, some serious misunderstandings and suspicions grow up between the family members, and here comes the final game with a nice twist at the end.

The story line is very good as well as the acting. Sara Downing (Kate) is the central character and her performance is quite impressive, but I would say that my favourite actor in this film is William McNamara (Hugh Babcock aka Tulsa). His role is short but you wouldn't find the final really amusing without it. In general, this is a very well done low budget film.

I thought this was a very random and below average movie. The story mostly revolves around a father, his son and a daughter who make a living conning people from an inn that serves as a cover. None of them are really likable and we basically see them conning people for the first hour or so. There is some background to these characters but in this first hour its hardly touched upon and almost never influences the characters actions or emotions. As an effect the story never really gets going.

The con victims are uninteresting and the way they get scammed and mostly never fight back just seems very unrealistic. There is no threat to any of the characters like the law being after them. We are simply made to believe that three not so intelligent people can con pretty much every costumer that walks into their inn for years without anyone ever ringing an alarm bell. Also, some subplots just end abruptly which often made me think why they were in the movie in the first place.

The actors really didn't have much to work with here, the plot hangs together like loose sand. If there would have been some interesting characters and dialogue or events you could maybe get over the fact that its just people getting conned for most of the movie rather than there being a good story or. Sadly, this is not the case. As a result none of the actors were able to ever rise above the level of stereotypes.

So in short not a bad idea for a movie, but it lacks too much of anything that can make a movie good. I definitely do not recommend it. Go watch the Sting if you're in the mood for this theme.