MovieChat Forums > House of Games (1987) Discussion > The Messer Becomes the Messee! ; )

The Messer Becomes the Messee! ; )

posted 19 years ago by missygoldstein
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SPOILERS
I've seen this movie several times. I agree Lindsey Crouses performance was very stiff. I couldn't figure out if this was intentional. I was blown away the first time I watched her get conned in the most elaborate way, but seeing it now and being older and more experienced myself I find it a little far fetched. She is a psychologist. She wrote a book about the "guide to compulsive behavior". She herself thinks she's a fraud. She's right. She doesn't know *beep* She got sucked in and was duped so easily. I suppose that is the irony, that a person who makes a career in counseling and has a phd in human behavior could herself fall prey so easily to a two bit con artist.

The problems I have with this movie are a. the performance of cruise (montenga was incredible!!!!). b. the airport scene (there's no way a man as clever as montenga would even fall for one second for her ruse. She just happens to be at the airport? He doesn't even question her as to why she's there and what she's doing there. He'd be onto that in a second. Hmmm, there were some other things that bothered me, but I can't remember. Mostly I loved this film.

I thought the end scene when she sees them at the bar and the entire cast of characters. Her listening to them lay out the entire way they duped her, and how stupid she was.

All in all a great film.

[–] dhakim-1 19 years ago

most people who have never been in such situations will not understand how subtle the mechanisms of the con really are. keep in mind that this and other cons turns on a certain set of emotional whipsaws that [if done right] throw the mark off his/her pins. how many people can think straight after a whole night of no sleep, after having their life and/or career placed in dire peril, after seeing someone shot to death?

the con depends on the tantalising-of/withholding-from the mark -- it's all about seduction. when a person is properly seduced, they don't even realise the shifts from one state to another; they are carried along -- actually *swept up* in the events.

my old acting coach used to tell me when i had trouble remembering lines: "if you understand the plot and them of the play, what the writer meant, then there is *no other line that would make sense for your character to say*." in the properly planned and executed con, the mark is guided so skilfully and thoroughly, that his response is scripted to a fare-thee-well.

remember jt walsh in 'the grifters,' another film about the long con - how he played right to the edge, offering to take the mark into the 'room full of computers' that was a bare space with wires hanging fromt he ceiling? he was *so good* at it that he knew his mark would say "no no, it's all right." his character wouldn't have played that with every mark; only with the ones who were *safe bets*.

house of games is idiosyncratically directed and acted, and it is all to give it a sense of unreality i think. this was much like de palma having amy irving *walk backwards* in the closing sequence of "carrie," which he then *ran backwards* in the editing, so that her walk was completely unreal.

i think all the dialogue and lindsay crouse's "poor acting" were [mostly] deliberate attempts to create some "atmosphere" of unreality. [or perhaps i'm just being kind]...

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