FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1991 MOVIES | ae Annette Bening, John Cusack, and Anjelica Huston in “The Grifters.” Pity the poor con manAs an exercise in style, “The Grifters” has in its favor its sun- washed light, hip gangster-movie clothing bespeaking the timeless- ness of greed and petty hustlers, and a daytime film noir feel of in- evitable doom. As an exercise in storytelling, however, it fails. “The Grifters” is adapted from ‘a dime novel by the late Jim Thompson, whose tough-talking, vaguely metaphysical stories of B- girls and small-time mugs have taken on a latter-day cult status — like Damon Runyon without the sentiment. He didn’t write kitschy or ironic, and the movies based on his books — including Sam Peck- inpah’s “The Getaway” (1972) and James Foley’s “After Dark, My Sweet” (1990) — likewise tended to be tough and straightforward. But “The Grifters” — a small, cir- cular tale of a “short con” artist content with his lot, until his hus- tling cheapjack girlfriend and his hustling apparent mother both try to use him for different ends — seems designed for a more buoy- ant if equally hard-edged a) proach. ‘And indeed, this is the tack tak- en by screenwriter Donald E. Westlake, the acclaimed, pseud- onymous mystery novelist, and di- rector Stephen Frears (“Sammy and Rosie Get Laid,” “Dangerous Liaisons”). But their self-con- sciously hip take on the tale ulti- mately does not jell, thanks partly to what is, for mysteries, a cardi- nal sin — unanswered questions ‘Bening, Pat Hingle, Henry Jones, J.T. Walsh. Miramax Fim Running tres TH rmindes. Raled R. Opens Tocaly today and plot holes that don’t play fair with the viewer. Right from the start, when we meet Lily Dillon (Anjelica Huston) at a race track making suspicious- ly large bets on long shots to lower the odds, and mailing losing bet- ting slips to her mobster boss, the filmmakers decline to explain the point. This elliptical approach continues maddeningly through- out. We see, for instance, small- time grifter Roy Dillon (John Cu- sack) conning for chump change and extolling the virtues of the short con. But somehow he’s man- aged to amass and stash tens of thousands of dollars. From where? Roy — who regards the con game as functionally as TV repair- men look at their jobs — gets suckered into the center of two op- posing webs spun by Lily and by his girlfriend Myra (Annette Ben- ing ‘who plays her as a sexual pix- ie). Lily — who claims to be but never is definitively established as Roy’s mother — suffers what seems like maternal guilt, brought on by having abandoned Roy and, perhaps, having had an incestuous affair with him. She wants to things right with him | badly that she blows an assign- ment for her murderous but avun= cular mob boss (Pat Hingle). ‘An old grifter herself, Lily takes an immediate dislike’ to Myra, whose sense of fashion is delight- fully L.A. streetwalker. “What's your objection to Myra?” an indig. nant Roy asks. “Same as any- body's,” Lily snorts. Well, you put an honest dishon- est guy like Roy in a jar with a black widow and a tarantula, and naturally things turn ugly. There's a seedy fascination watching it all go down, but just when you get settled in, the filmmakers throw in a hokey flashback, such as Myra reminiscing about her long-con mentor (J.T. Walsh) in a scene that Bening in particular handles with astonishing clumsiness. The actress is remarkably vital in one playful nude scene after another, ‘but — her Broadway success in “Coastal Disturbances” notwith- standing — remarkably uncon- vincing outside the bedroom. Huston is fierce and fun, and Cusack plays Roy on such a lovely, wistful note that you can't help feeling empathy for his character, ‘even as he’s fleecing some sheep. ‘The actors’ moments together are charged with the sense of old war- riors who despise and respect each other. Yet in director Frears’ glossy exercise, too much is over — unlike in David Mamet's equally stylized “House of Games” and other more sub- stantive con-artist movies.