Jim Thompson invites readers into the world of his novels with a cheery
"Welcome to Hell." Frears takes the admonition with gusto
as he introduces us to the utterly unpleasant cons triangulating over
love and money in this adaptation. Cusack is the son of Huston, who'd
abandoned him in the hope he would grow up better than/without her.
Instead, he has entered the same amoral world, and is having an affair
with mother-surrogate figure Bening. Throw in a game of who's hiding
the Mafia money, some spit-out dialogue worthy of Bogie and Hepburn,
and you've reinvented film noir. But nasty.
