TURN THE RIVER TURNED MY STOMACH Good grifter stories are hard to come by because you secretly never want to know exactly how good or bad they really are. TURN THE RIVER is a character study if ever there was one. Kailey Sullivan (beautiful Famke Jansen) is a shady character by day and hustler by night. Somewhere in there she is also a mother with no custody but wants to take her son and wander off into the sunset. Of course she needs money and of course since she is a pool player on the grift she will have some hustling to do. All the of courses are due in large part to the fact that we see all this coming. The end is predictable just as ever other part of this movie is. The problem is her character. There is little plot and less of anything else, so the movie rests on her head. Pretty as it is, the character never turns into someone we want to know and/or care about. Basically it makes for an overall lukewarm at best movie not worth the view. Rent The Grifters with John Cuscak, Annette Bening and Anjelica Huston instead.
NOT a pick: A character-driven film needs a solid character. Don't bother.
