The Grifters is a 1990 neo-noir film directed by Stephen Frears and produced by Martin Scorsese. It stars John Cusack, Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening and is based upon The Grifters, a pulp novel by Jim Thompson. Lilly Dillon is a veteran con artist who begins to rethink her life when her son Roy, a small-time grifter, suffers an almost-fatal injury when hit with a thrust from the blunt end of a baseball bat, right after a failed scam. Lilly works for a bookmaker, Bobo Justus, handling playback at the tracks — that is, betting money to lower the odds of longshots. On her way to La... Jolla for the horse races, she stops in Los Angeles to visit Roy, whom she hasn't seen in eight years. She finds him in pain and bleeding internally. When medical assistance finally comes, Lilly confronts the doctor, threatening to have him killed if her son dies. At the hospital, Lilly meets and takes an instant dislike to Roy's girlfriend, Myra Langtry, who is a few years older than her son. Lilly urges her son to quit the grift, saying he literally doesn't have the stomach for it. Because she leaves late for La Jolla, she misses a race where the winner was paying 70-1.
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